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THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 




C'rossino' a ri(l<rc> of tlic swamp. 



THE FOUNTAIN 
OF YOUTH 



Bt 



CHARLES TENNEY JACKSON 



Illustrated with Photographs 




NEW YORK 

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 

MCMXIV 






Copyright, 1914, by 
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 



All rights reserved 






Mjfvttc 



f^M^i-vnUi^ 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. We Take a Chance With Each Other 



II. The Old Pirate Folkses . , 

III. The Baratarians .... 

IV. A-Cruise on the " Tiger " Boat 
V. The Old Sto* Balls . , . 

VI. Blackberry Romance . . , 

VII. Snakes or Bayou L'Ourse . 

VIII. Through the Deep Swamp , 

IX. Some Rough Paddling . . , 

X. The Waterhouse Boys . 

XI. Adrift With the Floating Gardens 

XII. Down La Fourche in a " Gazzoline 

XIII. Paddling to the Gulf Islands 

XIV. More Balls, Girls, and Legends . 
XV. On the Baron's Island 

XVI. With the Moro Exiles 

XVII. The " Bantayan " Ends Her Cruise 



PAGE 

11 
84 

57 

78 

93 

109 

132 

153 

178 

194 

223 

254 

269 

289 

306 

320 

335 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Crossing a ridge of the swamp , . ., Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The first camp in Barataria ....... 16 

The tow steamer finally passed us .... . 24 

We inquired the way 32 

The trappers paddle from the deep swamp ... 40 

An oak that sheltered the buccaneers of Barataria . 48 

Running his trapline 56 

The ancient burial place of the Berthauds ... 64 
The rendezvous of La Fitte's pirates on the shell 

temple 72 

Clark Cheniere's lonely shore ....:.. 80 

I tried the pirogue out cautiously 88 

A seine company hauling shrimp on the shores of 

Barataria Bay 104 

We dug through the cane to the swamp . . . 112 

The cypress reflect their beauty from the swamp lakes 120 

A chance meeting at the bayou's edge . . . . 128 

Landing on the lily-guarded shore 136 

Florion and I hunted squirrels in the deep swamp . 144 

Thankful to camp on the roots of a sunken cypress . 152 
Now and then we dragged the pirogue from pool to 

pool 160 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

We shot squirrels along the jungle-grown shores of 

Grand Lake 176 

On Bayou Teche 192 

A terrapin hunter and his " turtle dogs " on Bara- 

taria Bay 208 

The desolate shores of Caminada 216 

Raising the seine 232 

Site of Jean La Fitte's fort at Grand Terre . . 240 
We had reached salt water and salt water men . . 256 
We climb above the moss plumes to take an obser- 
vation 272 

The pelicans of the Grand Isle marshes .... 288 

Drying shrimp on the platform 304 

The sunken shores and cypress spikes of Grand Lake 320 

Old Man Captain's camp after the crevasse . . . 336 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 



CHAPTER I 

iVTE TAKE A CHANCE WITH EACH OTHER 

I NEVER laid eyes upon Hen until we were 
introduced at the University Club. It was 
a gray day of dirty snow, February, and 
the North; and I saw at once that something 
ailed the man, stomach, or the weather, or busi- 
ness. I also was peeved — what did Smith mean 
by introducing two strangers who merely de- 
sired to be left alone to nurse their grouches? 
Well, the thing was done, and Hen and I stared 
gloomily across the table at each other. 

He looked the last person in the world to 
start off, on ten minutes' notice, to pursue a 
phantasy, and so did I; two bachelors, thin of 
hair, with eye-glasses, and in those mid-thirties 
when a man begins to think a bit of the long, 
straight road, and yet can hark back to the high 

trail of youth. Two men we were without ties 

11 



12 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

or the saving grace of knowing that one is nec- 
essary anywhere in the scheme. As Hen mut- 
tered suddenly, either of us could be eliminated 
without disturbing, for an instant, the cosmic 
order. I saw at once something was wrong with 
his soul or his stomach. Cafes, theaters, cock- 
tails, newspapers, telephones, appointments, 
women who seemed to think one was designed 
by a frivolous providence to amuse them — the 
whole jangling scheme of the day was irritably 
foolish. 

I remarked cleverly that the weather was rot- 
ten. And the man stared at me a moment and 
then burst out: "Yes, and let's get out of it!" 

" Where? " I responded. 

There was a map of the New World on the 
wall and Hen suddenly put back his chair, 
crossed over, and drew a huge circle about the 
lower half of North America. "Say!" he 
growled ; *' let's get a canoe and paddle around 
the Gulf of Mexico!" 

Now, I had never seen a canoe in my life. 
Mighty curious, but true. And I had never 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 13 

given a thought to the Gulf of Mexico since high 
school days. But I looked at the map. Then 
I looked at the man. Then I murmured: 
"Well, I don't see what's to stop us. There 
don't seem to be any obstructions except some 
islands and Florida, which sticks out a bit in the 
way, but by paddling carefully a fellow won't 
hit 'em." 

Hen looked at me with more approval. 
" Look here ! I'm thirty-five and feel fifty. 
Just discovered that I'm hated by every man 
in our sales department; my stenographer quit 
last night. Up and told me she wouldn't stand 
for me any longer. Yah ! " He made an awful 
grimace at me : " No — not girl — stomach. 
That's me. Now, what's the matter with you? " 

" Oh, nothing. Only, I'd like to go back — 
back to something that isn't smart or clever; 
dinner people who work so strainedly to impress 
you; show people who do so much caterwauling 
to shock you; magazine people who endeavor so 
highmindedly to enlighten you. There isn't a 
jolt in the entire smear of 'em, and I want to 



14 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

sideste]3 it all. Back — back to something that 
is mere, simple good humor, so's we could laugh 
like when we were kids " 

" That's it! You got it! " Hen pounded the 
table excitedly. " Back to j^outh. Hey — who 
was the old party from Spain who got tired of 
reform and investigation and the drama and all, 
and went to Florida looking for the Fountain of 
Youth? His hair was thin and his digestion 
none too good, so he beat it. Ponce got in 
wrong. Why, all Florida is jammed with hotels, 
and the hotels with people who haven't a decent 
stomach to bless 'em. And their hair — why, it 
comes from Paris, or Roumania, or Kashgar! 
Yes, sir, they goldbricked poor old Ponce when 
he put up there. Now, you and I — we'll get a 
canoe and go paddle around until we find the 
Fountain." 

I had never seen Hen ten minutes before. 
And, I repeat, I'd never seen a canoe. Life 
had kept me busied between the shortgrass 
country and the big cities, and a canoe had just 
never fallen under my eye. 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 15 

" Well," I responded, "when can you start? " 

" At six-thirty. We'll grab the New Orleans 
Limited. You go telegraph to Old Town, 
Maine, where the best canoes come from, and 
order one to be sent on to us. I'll chase upstairs 
and pack my stuff — ^guns and rods and alumi- 
num cooking outfit and a striped little tent — 
and the duffle bags " 

" Piffle sacks ! " I retorted, for I'd never heard 
of them. " All right. Six-thirty on the Lake 
Shore. I'll get two taxis for the outfit." We 
arose and clattered back our chairs. " Beg par- 
don," I went on, " but what did Smith say your 
name was ? " 

Then we both laughed — really laughed, for 
the first time since the playhouse season opened. 
" You're right, old man ! One really ought to 
know, of course, if one is going off to — to " 

" Find the Fountain ? And more hair — and 
a stomach? You're right as right can be. But 
I'll take a chance on you, old top — you and your 
grouch ! " 

We were taking chances. One does when one 



16 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

agrees — ten minutes after meeting a man — to 
go roll in the same blanket with him. And eat 
turtle eggs with him. And fight mosquitoes 
with him. And hunt for pirates' treasure along 
with Old Man Captain. And splash with him 
in the Fountain! Never two men who had 
fewer illusions than Hen and I. We merely 
had a vision, and that was of two total strangers, 
thin of hair and wearing goldset eye-glasses, 
paddling a canoe around the Gulf of Mexico, 
stopping, now and then, to inquire the way, and 
maybe buy fresh rolls of the natives for break- 
fast. 

But I leave it to you if we were cynics. Cynics 
never start to find the Fountain in a sixteen-foot 
muslin ship. Cynicism stays home and croaks; 
and afar the sun is shining and the breezes play. 
Cynics were plenty about the club when Hen 
and I calmly explained. 

" The bloom is off" the peach, the faces on the 
street no longer fair ; a fellow's breakfast doesn't 
sit well, and his pipe is sour. So, we're going." 

I'll not rehearse all the croaking. *' Yellow 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 17 

fever," they said. " It's exploded," we retorted. 
"Snakes!" "We'll carry a barrel of dope." 
" Get capsized? " " We'll sit on the sea sands 
and eat turtle eggs when the going's not good." 
"Hurricanes?" "We'll sit under something 
when it rains and read the camp goods cata- 
logs." 

" Well," they concluded, " chase along — get 
it out of 3^our systems." 

Inside of fifteen minutes I had ordered that 
sea-going canoe from Old Town, Maine. That's 
all I said. I repeat, I didn't know anything 
about them. But I didn't tell Hen. I hated to 
be rude to a stranger. I broke the news to him 
some weeks later when a ripping sea charged 
up at us on Lake Salvador, and Hen made 
some tart comment about my stroke. Then I 
turned and yelled in the gale. 

" Hen, I've knocked about all over the short- 
grass country and the big hills, and steered all 
kinds of proper devices, but of this craft, tell 
me, I beg, which end is which?" 

I yelled all that into the gale. Hen turned 



18 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

white, and stopped paddling for an instant. He 
looked at the far, dim shore over the smother of 
whitecaps and began to figure up his life insur- 
ance. 

" Stung ! " he murmured bitterly — " sure as 
little green apples ! " 

"" Canoe? " I sang out again: " Why, I can't 
even spell it ! " 

Then he yelled: "Why didn't you tell me 
before?" 

" If I had, you'd never have come I " I 
shouted. 

" Poor fool ! " he said. " You're right ! " 

Well, I'm ahead of this narrative, turtle eggs, 
the Fountain, Old Man Captain Johnson, the 
Gulf, and everything. 

As I said. Hen got the outfit. He'd read 
many more sporting catalogues and outing 
books than I. At that, neither of us knew a 
sea cow from a barred Holstein, a tarpon from 
a tarpaulin. But it didn't make much differ- 
ence: we never saw any. 

The first thing Hen got was a hypodermic 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 19 

syringe and some stuff to pump in when a fellow 
was snake-bitten. And thereafter, in all our 
adventures, his secret grievance was that I re- 
fused to get snake-bit. We practiced one day 
on a Barataria nigger as to needle insertions, 
but he also declined to get snake-bit and make 
the experiment complete. Hen was disgusted 
with that nigger, and that very day we pulled 
up camp and went on to discover some more 
public-spirited colored citizen and a handy 
snake. 

So all that day while Hen hustled the 
outfit together, I read up on the Gulf coast 
country. The articles of agreement between 
Hen and me were indefinite enough; we merely 
purposed to canoe around anywhere in the Gulf 
where it was deep enough. So I read up all the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey stuff back to 1879. 
Apparently the War Department spends all its 
time getting up data which no non-scientific 
citizen can make head or tail of. Some day I'll 
head a protest to have geodetic reports made 
out so that the tired business man who supports 



20 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the Republic on his cigars, highballs, steel rails, 
ad valorem and otherwise, can make out what 
the War Department means by all those figures 
and triangulations which bother the taxpayer 
who wants to go find the Fountain of Youth. 

But enough: eight days later two baldheaded 
men with glasses and khaki suits, abominably 
new and crinkly, paddled up to a wharf on 
Harvey's canal in southern Louisiana. There 
was a brilliant March sun and the world was 
as clean as a porcelain bathtub. Bald and 
burned a deep ochre across the brow, and wear- 
ing glasses — it must have been like an invasion 
of Martians down in that Louisiana swamp, 
where no Cajun had ever seen a canvas canoe. 

Now, frankly, I'll confess they've never seen 
one yet. Ours was at the bottom of the Atlan- 
tic. We'd waited days in New Orleans for that 
canoe shipped from Boston to arrive, and then 
we hauled our stuff across the Mississippi and 
camped on Harvey's canal; and the next day 
paddled a cypress johnboat down toward the 
Gulf. Not for a month did we learn that our 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 21 

beautiful sea-going canoe had gone down with 
her ship in a collision off Hatteras. 

Never mind, I'll tell you something just as 
interesting as canoe-trips — much more so. 
You'll not be sorry for reading on. Speaking 
of colored persons, on our flit through New Or- 
leans, we saw one on a bicycle flying up the 
street balancing a tray on his head on which 
were four plates of oysters on the half shell, a 
slice of lemon on each plate, and a bottle of beer 
in the middle. That was worth going South 
to see. 

It was good to go, out of the Northern Feb- 
ruary, and a gray town of docks and overhang- 
ing cranes and coal carriers and murky slips, 
and on to greet spring slipping up from Cuba. 
In central Mississippi we saw a ragged palm, 
and then a bayonet plant, and, about Pontchar- 
train in the moonlight, the Spanish moss; and 
then in somnolent, self-suflicient New Orleans, 
the roses and the perfume of its women on the 
street. I tell you we stopped and looked back, 
just as we had raced to the car window to see 



22 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the moss festooning a lonely cypress above a 
bayou. It was the South and its promise, and 
we felt nearer the Fountain, we, the ill product 
of the times — two spectacled, irreverent, philos- 
ophizing spectators. I repeat, we were quietly 
tired, but we were not cynics. The world is big, 
and after a bit one finds what a miserable little 
part of it he's been worrying about. 

Yes, as Hen said, when we paddled that bor- 
rowed johnboat down Harvey's canal, which is 
a six-mile cut from the Mississippi to Bara- 
taria bayou, seven miles above the city of New 
Orleans : " Old boy, we're off ! This will re- 
juvenate you! It's good to feel the cut of rude 
winds, the pain of the beaten spray, the rough 
edge of the outdoors smiting us as it did Magel- 
lan, Balboa, or the Saxon sea kings, rather than 
the crabbed, unhappy pain of towns and house 
people ! Give me the slant of the rain, the tug- 
ging blast, the roughness of the earth, and a 
bed under the stars ! '* 

Very good. Only he forgot to mention the 
deep-sea-going mosquitoes, the thundering big 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 23 

mosquitoes of Barataria which can bite through 
steel plate and make any bed under the stars a 
puddle of profanity. The first night I counted 
twenty-eight mosquitoes on a piece of Hen not 
as big as a dollar, and they had trouble crowd- 
ing on. Never mind, I will not discourage any- 
body so early. 

So we went on in that borrowed johnboat, 
merely to be adventuring while we waited for 
our canoe, Maine-made, from Boston. And the 
first night, after leaving Harvey, and paddling 
down the dank, smelly banks of the canal which 
precluded sight-seeing, we struck a tow-steamer 
bringing in a log raft half a mile long. That 
outfit about filled the canal. Hen and I pulled 
our johnboat up on the raft to avoid being 
crushed, and then it began to rain, while we 
were traveling backward at a greater rate than 
we had advanced. It rained an hour, and when 
we finally were able to slide off the raft and go 
in free water, it was dark. 

We paddled hopefully on, wondering if that 
brand-new camp outfit was really rain-proof. 



24 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

It was all very modish in the way of magazine 
advertisement camp outfits. There was an eight- 
pound silk tent, seven-by-seven; two duffle bags, 
each of which contained from ten to fifteen little 
paraffine bags holding our groceries; aluminum 
cooking things, and all that; to say nothing of 
the latest in rods, guns, tackle. Now, I'm no 
sportsman of that stripe. My roughing was 
done back in the days when a Western-bred boy 
counted his cartridges as gold, fished with a 
nickel line and a mongrel hook, and would start 
on a trip with a hunk of salt meat and a shirt- 
sleeve filled with cornmeal. Duffle bags and 
piffle sacks were unheard of. But Hen had all 
of them and more. 

Nothing will so divert a man in camp as two 
dufflle bags. He wants some sugar — not the 
tabloid saccharine Hen had in his khaki pocket 
for emergencies, but real sugar- trust sugar. So 
he dives into the duffle bag. There are seven- 
teen paraffine-coated bags in the duffle, each like 
the other, and the seeker unties each and ties 
them all up and then concludes his sugar is in 




The tow stcniiu'r finally i^asscd us. 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 25 

the other duffle bag. So he lugs it out and un- 
ties seventeen more little brown bags, and then 
discovers, at length, that the sugar is not in the 
duffle bags at all, but in the piffle sack, or else 
Hen is sitting on it. It's always strange how, 
when dark is coming and it's raining, what 
you want is in the very last sack of the other 
duffle, or else isn't in either. Duffle bags are 
mighty strange. 

Well, finally we crawled up the muddy bank 
of that canal onto a small platform above the 
rainy swamp, which held a black, windowless 
shack. It leaked, it was full of spiders and ill 
smells, and back of it the storm howled in the 
cypress. When we lit a candle in our patent 
collapsible lantern, that shack looked bad. Up 
home you wouldn't have housed a tramp cat in 
it. It seemed a far travel to the Fountain. In 
this tie-cutter's shanty we cooked a mulligan, 
and then spread blankets on the muddy moss of 
the floor and tried to sleep. The mosquitoes 
came in hordes, and noisy bugs crawled out of 
the cracks, and lizards raced about the blankets. 



26 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Outside the owls hooted, the mournfulest sound 
that two seekers of the Well of Youth ever 
tackled. 

It made you old to listen to all those eerie 
swamp noises. And the mosquito cloud thick- 
ened and the rain beat harder and leaked 
through, and finally with the boom of the owls 
and the rush of wind in the moss-draped cypress. 
Hen and I got up and lit a fire on the floor and 
sat there, each wondering to himself, whose fool 
idea this was, anyhow. We remembered last 
night's comfortable camp on the levee at Har- 
vey and the hospitable deputy sheriff who 
strolled in and held up an Italian vegetable 
man, compelling him to disgorge the best stuff 
he had for our commissary. When we wanted 
to pay, the deputy waved the peddier airily on. 
*' That's all right. What I say, goes. I like 
you, suh, and this yere's the free state o' Bara- 
taria. The hull swamp is yours ! " 

That first night in it, we'd have traded it off 
"unsight, unseen," as the kids say. We didn't 
sleep. The racket of that storm, the yowling 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 27 

of the owls each minute nearer, and the heaving 
of the shack on its flimsy frame above the black 
bayou, and the mosquitoes which one could see 
like a gray cloud just outside the range of our 
smudge, didn't conduce. Near daylight, when 
the gale fell and the moss ceased its switching 
on the walls, we wrapped tightly in our blankets 
and, with nothing but noses to the air — and the 
mosquitoes — slept. 

But our noses — Oh, our noses! Heaven must 
be a place where nothing ever bites one. 

The next morning we crawled out of that 
black box to a scene of beauty. You'll have to 
see a cypress swamp, moss-hung, set with pal- 
mettoes, perfumed with magnolia, all a-glitter 
in the sun, to understand. And through it ran 
the canal like a bright arrow. The mocking 
birds and blackbirds were singing, and the cardi- 
nals flitting like bits of red flannel in the breeze. 
It was all good, and we felt better. We washed 
and had eggs and coffee, discovering meantime 
that, despite all our careful elimination of super- 
fluities for that painfully scientific, aluminum- 



28 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

tabloid-duffle-bag-and-piffle kit, we had three 
hair brushes aboard. Two baldheaded men 
with three hair brushes down in the Barataria 
swamps! But already we felt rejuvenated a bit. 
We decided to keep three hair brushes — who 
could tell what a draught at the Fountain 
would do? 

After breakfast we sat on the black platform 
and smoked. The beautiful, sprawly swamp 
about us steamed and flickered. The scarlet 
tanagers and mocking birds darted here and 
there, and the brilliant chameleons scampered 
over our luggage. After a while a noisy little 
stern-wheeler came by piled to the ears with moss 
bales. She looked for all the world like an ani- 
mated feather duster and she ambled to our 
crazy wharf, ran out a line, and hailed us 
genially. 

The crew were a Cajun-Italio-Filipino outfit 
from the lower lakes, a lean-shanked, hatchet- 
jawed lot, who at once began to make coffee 
over our fire. And while we were explaining 
about owls and mosquitoes and camera and gun 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 29 

that would shoot I-don't-know-how-many-times, 
and the aluminum cooking pans, along came 
another moss-boat, and blessed if it didn't throw 
us a line, quit its business, and start to make 
coffee over our fire, every man jack of the two 
crews jabbering, gesticulating, fingering our 
scientific kit, calling one another to run, look, 
listen. 

Talk? You never heard so much multi-speed 
conversation. And we all made coffee, over and 
over again, coffee so strong it stained the cups, 
as black as tar, stimulating as brandy of '73. 
We, the hosts, lectured ably on every feature 
of our celebrated camp kit. We drank coffee 
with each and "^ bon soired/' and bowed and 
felicitated. When the visitors departed. Hen 
threw himself on his duffle and looked at me. 

" Old top, is traveling down here to be a con- 
tinual social function? Talk? — I never knew 
there was so much language ! " 

Then on down the moss-hung and glittering 
tidal stream we paddled. Once an alligator 
poked his snout inquiringly out of the reeds, and 



30 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Hen began to assemble his automatic rifle, which 
would shoot I don't know how many times. I 
got out our copy of the Louisiana game laws 
to see if alligators were in season. 

"Game laws, nothing!" said Hen. "Didn't 
the deputy tell us this was the free State of 
Barataria, and anj^thing goes? Ain't we headed 
right down into the haunts of Jean La Fitte and 
the buccaneers? Can you imagine Captain Kidd 
reading up the game laws to see if it was the 
closed season for Spanish treasure? Me for that 
'gator!" 

Then we stood up in the johnboat and 
I waved the game laws and Hen his automatic. 

" Steady her ! " yelled Hen, and pulled the 
trigger, once, twice. 

Nothing happened except that Barataria alli- 
gator winked an eye lazily as the johnboat 
floated past his starboard bow. 

" Snap — snap ! " went Hen's highly modern 
rifle again. " I'm a son-of-a-gun," he mur- 
mured. 

" Right on that seat by you," I said, *' is quite 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 31 

a pile of screws and things which you took out 
of that rifle's innards and never put back." 

" Couldn't find any place for 'em," retorted 
Hen. "And — holy banana! See, there's a 
string tied to that alligator!" 

Up on the swamp edge now I saw a picka- 
ninny staring at us with round, wide eyes. He 
was dressed in a meal sack with holes cut in the 
corners for his arms to stick through. And he 
held a rotten rope, the other end of which ap- 
peared to be attached to the submarine structure 
of that four-foot alligator. 

"Hi, boy!" I yelled. "Look out for that 
'gator!" 

" He won't hurt nuffin, boss. Ah hung him 
out heah to see if he done won't catch hisself 
some breakfus'. Mammy says he done eat mo* 
eround de house dan fou' houn* dawgs, and Ah 
gotter make him work fo' his livin'." 

" Can you beat it? " gasped Hen, turning to 
me perspiringly. 

" If he don't wiggle hisself pretty soon Ah'll 
sho' haul him asho' and give him a beatin'. Dat 



32 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

lazy 'gator don't do nuffin but hang eround de 
do' step waitin' fo' me to gin him a ham bone." 

Hen laid down his automatic and picked up 
his paddle. " Get out of here," he muttered. 
" This is no place for a sportsman's son! 'Gator 
on a string sucking a ham bone ! Oh, my degen- 
erate wilderness! I reckon if we run onto a 
bear down below he'll be turning a hand- 
organ! " 

We hurried on around a bend to get away 
from that ham-bone alligator. It was a peace- 
ful spot, and we floated while Hen began to re- 
assemble his automatic gun that would shoot I 
don't know how many times. We discovered a 
venerable colored citizen sitting on a log fishing 
for perch. 

" Whe' you-all gemmen gwine? " he inquired 
reasonably. 

" We don't know," responded Hen. " But 
how do we get there ? " 

" Yo' keep on a-gwine. Dat Tiger boat she 
come erlong dis evenin' and pick yo' up. Dey's 
gwine to be a ball down below. Dat Tiger boat 




We in(|uired the way 



WE TAKE A CHANCE 33 

she's a-comin' loaded with himber an' ladies." 
Lumber and ladies! " Hooray for the ball! " 
I said. 

But Hen looked peeved. That ham-bone alli- 
gator had knocked all the romance out of Bara- 
taria, the beautiful, for him. 

" If I hadn't left all those screws out of my 
gun," he growled, " I'd have soaked that nig- 
ger's 'gator so he'd never want ham-bones any 
more. As for ladies and balls, I decline. I 
came here for sport — and more hair. For pirate 
treasure and a stomach that will start without 
cranking. And tarpon and anytliing else iuj 
season or out. I'll show these natives some- 
thing. Whj'-, a real live sportsman never hit 
this region ! " 



CHAPTER II 

THE OLD PIRATE FOLKSES 

WE rowed the leaky johnboat more hope- 
ful miles out of the canal into winding 
Bayou Barataria; Barataria, the un- 
kempt and the beautiful, stretching out to the 
great network of waterways and sunken forests 
and brilliant salt prairies to the Gulf; Bara- 
taria, the lawless, with its dim traditions of 
thriftless gold and bloody romance. The 
ragged cypress with their evil knees jutting out 
of the black swamp water were on either side, 
and back of them the wilderness of latanier 
palms, tupelo gum, oaks, swamp maples, cane, 
and mangrove, all matted wilh the impenetrable 
creepers, flower-hung and sweet-smelling. At 
noon we crawled up on a plank that made up 
the wharf before a shack set on piles above the 
sunken bank, ate a snack, and slumbered peace- 
fully. 

84, 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 35 

*' Where you going? " queried Hen, somno- 
lently, after a bit. 

" I don't know. Where are you? " 

"Blessed if I know! What's the use? It's 
fine and sunny." 

It was. We relaxed. We breathed in that 
" wind up from Cuba," under the glory of a 
Louisiana springtime sky, and you could not 
have bribed us away from the content we had 
found. It was as if old Mother Nature had 
passed her hand above us and murmured: 
" Peace." 

Actually, I could feel my hair sprout. 

So Hen and I with the borrowed johnboat 
and our duffles and piffles journeyed on to the 
Fountain. We were overtaken by another 
wheezy little stern-wheeler that afternoon whicli 
gave us a tow and hauled us deeper into the 
wilderness. The three Cajuns of the crew bid 
us thrice welcome. They were a happy lot, 
these bayou boatmen. Crabs, fish, moss, pelts 
— credulous, irresponsible, gentle-mannered — 
their seasonal living came easily, and its isola- 
tion gave them their character. 



36 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

On Bayou Villere, where the trade-boat left 
us, as it turned off across Lake Salvador, the 
great brackish tide-water to the westward, we 
met another lanky pantalooned native, paddling 
lazily in from his muskrat traps. I ceased 
rowing to ask about campsites, and he looked 
amiably doubtful. Two men paddling around 
in a boat for pleasure! 

Le nom de Dieu! What next? We had 
come down from New Orleans — for pleasure! 

" N'Awlyins? My f adder he say dat fine 
town. Wan time my fadder he tak hees own 
crabs up dere. Eheu! My fadder hee say dat 
N'Awlyins town got mo' people den mos' all 
La Fourche! Hee say dey mo' boats — sacre, 
dem boats! You-all know dat Tiger boat? My 
fadder say wan of dem N'Awlyins boats eat up 
dat Tiger boat lak wan leetle shrimp. Some 
time I go up and see dat N'Awlyins town." 

Less than thirty miles away, he had never 
seen the city ! He would trap lazily in the great 
salt marshes, crab lazily in the spring, J)ick moss 
lazily in summer, finding a turtle now and then, 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 37 

or a 'gator to trade to the store-boat; and Sun- 
day he would play " beeg dog " on the gallery 
and glance at the girls in their gowns who go 
by single file on the two-plank walk that strag- 
gled along the bayou side from house to house. 
Back of this narrow strip rises the frowning 
cypress wall; in front, the slow-moving bayou. 
The sun shines, the children play, the old men 
mend the seines; and past come the red-sailed 
luggars from Grand Isle, cypress rafts from the 
deep swamp, trade-boats bound for the great 
river to the North which flows many feet above 
the level of Barataria roof -trees. The " Free 
State" I So it has been since their fathers 
fought and smuggled with Jean La Fitte. 
Yankees may c^me and go with their chatter 
about reclaiming land and deepening channels, 
but the Baratarians shrug and stir their cofl'ee. 
Eh? God is good — He will see to it that there 
is alwaj^s a mink to trap and a crab to catch — 
and the sun will shine, and the salt tide move. 
Tres hien? 

The first time we had a chance to put up that 



38 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

painfully new silk tent — crackly as a girl grad- 
uate's white skirt — was when we cast the john- 
boat loose on Bayou Villere, called ^^ adieus'* 
and "^ bon soirs " to the gentle-mannered crew, 
and paddled west to Lake Salvador. It was a 
darkling night and the low dank jungle of 
prairie cane and squatty cypress on the inun- 
dated banks offered nothing in the shape of a 
camp. We had left the last inhabitable land 
behind at a tumble-down old plantation, wreck 
of the war and the ceaseless strife with the en- 
croaching Gulf waters, its three thousand acres 
of former rice and sugar land, its quarters for 
four hundred slaves, sugar houses, canals, grown 
to jungle, the huge, overshot irrigating wheel 
for the rice lands all a mournful monument of 
past glories. 

Berthaud's was one of the three or four plan- 
tations from New Orleans to the Gulf which 
await modern engineering to reclaim its fabu- 
lously fertile arpents. Now it was given over to 
the trappers and turtle catchers, its legends of 
La Fitte's treasure, and the slave ship scuttling; 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 39 

and the last of the Berthauds lie under the tan- 
gle of vines covering the shell mound which 
raises their graves above the tides. The pirates 
made it a rendezvous for their trade of ill-gotten 
goods with the Orleanians until Jackson sum- 
moned La Fitte to his aid at the battle of Chal- 
mette; and with his amnesty, after the victory, 
the buccaneer gave up his Barataria strongholds 
and left American territory, to be sent to the 
bottom in 1821 by an English sloop-of-war off 
Galveston. 

The great plantation was deserted enough 
now. As we rounded the oak-clustered point to 
the lake we saw, in a mud-chimneyed hut, a 
woman's Afric face — the nostrils wide, the tilted 
chin — ^in her eyes the scorn of the beaten, for, 
after all, with our platitudinous amendments 
and proclamations, the negroes are a subject 
and an alien race. We recalled the drawling 
hospitality of a deputy up the river: "When 
you-all get back in June we'll try to hang a 
nigger for you, if the boys ain't too busy." 

It was evening when we pulled up at Old 



40 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Spanish Man's Point. The broad bayou wid- 
ened here to the lake, and behind the scrubby 
oaks the prairie cane stretched to the gray and 
somber forest wall a mile away. Nowhere the 
shelly bank rose ten inches above the black 
water, but we were astonished to find that here, 
on the only bit of soil, a ragged little garden 
sprang. Potatoes, radishes, melon vines — we 
crushed down a corner of the reedy point and 
pitched the tent within a foot of the neat little 
rows. We wondered at that garden all the time 
we were cutting palmettoes for a bed and diving 
down in those duffles for bacon and bread and 
tabloid tea and sugar. And at sunset we had a 
caller. Down the bayou came a big crazy skiff, 
black and leaky, the feathered old oar blades 
nailed to saplings and tied to the craft with 
twine; and in it, standing upright, pushing on 
the oars, was Old Man Captain Johnson. We 
made his acquaintance at once — it was his gar- 
den! He bumped his old boat ashore and came 
to the tent in some shy suspicion. We apolo- 
gized for intruding. 




T])C" truppcrs puddlr fVoni the deep sw.-inip. 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 41 

" Neveh mind that," retorted Mr. Johnson. 
" I saw you boys passin' this way and I follehed. 
I wondered what you-all was a headin' out in 
the lake fo' with a stawm comin' up. Man, you 
can't camp on this point if she blows — you'll be 
blowed clean off in the swamp! And the wateh 
— have to keep rubber shoes on them 'taters of 
mine when a nor- wester comes ! " 

We thanked him and explained. He seemed 
incredulous — his chuckle came — a little dry old 
man with a little dry old chuckle. What had 
once been a pair of old hip boots was tied to 
his feet with twine; he wore a shirt that he'd 
certain brought from the Surrender; and at his 
heels were two mongrel hound pups. A hun- 
gry outfit, but picturesque — it took some time 
to find the heart of gold in this old drifter, 
swamper, treasure hunter, veteran of Lee's 
ragged and immortal host, but we found it. He 
looked over our sporting-goods catalogue outfit 
in silence. If such a thing as a collapsible, alu- 
minum frying pan and telescope cups, jointed 
rods and reels had ever penetrated Barataria, it 



42 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

was before Old Man Captain came down from 
the Delta country to find La Fitte's gold. 

We watched his gentle eyes rove over the 
impedimenta — we had been taken for fortune 
tellers, traveling doctors, engineers, detectives, 
in the forty-eight hours since we came into the 
bayous — and up at Harvey the boys gathered 
about, bringing nickels to the tent " fo' the 
show " of which there was none unless it was 
Hen trying to flip a mule-colored flapjack in a 
thirty-mile wind down the levee. But Old Man 
Captain capped the bayous' verdict. " I reck- 
on," he murmured, picking up Hen's silver- 
mounted reel, listening to the click, " you-all air 
goin' to find the big hide-up shu' with this di- 
vinin' rod! " 

He sighed and turned to look at his muddy 
skiffs and two lean pups. " I reckon that there 
old Pirate tu'n right up in his grave when you 
wiggle that patent stick oveh him." He mo- 
tioned back in the oak scrub. And then we saw, 
beneath the sprawling oak, a low mound among 
the palmettoes — neat, white-shelled, a stick at 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 43 

the foot. " Them old pirate folkses gin right 
up if they see you boys come fritterin' around 
with you' treasure machine." 

Old Man Johnson went on to tell this was 
the last of Jean La Fitte's men, buried on this 
point some forty years ago. The story is that 
in his extreme age Armand Pelletier got drunk 
in New Orleans and betrayed the secret of La 
Fitte's big " hide-up " to some strangers who 
later came to his shanty on Spanish Man's 
Point and helped the buccaneer search for the 
exact spot. At any rate, to-day you can see 
the excavations in the shells; as, indeed, every 
likely foot of Lake Salvador's shores and all 
the bayous from Grand Terre to Butte la Rose 
have their diggings and their traditions. But the 
Baratarians say that one night, knowing Pelle- 
tier's weakness, the strangers sent him down the 
bayou to get a cask of wine, and on his return, 
drunk, they got him drunker, and when he re- 
covered, they had gone — and the treasure hole 
was deeper, the " hide-up " stolen ! Twenty 
thousand dollars, old Pelletier swore they got. 



44 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

and he stayed on the Point with his demijohns 
and legends, until he died and the wild hogs 
ate him. Captain Johnson's neat little mound 
hid the rest. " Sorteh fixed it up," apologized 
the old rebel gently, *' I reckon he wa'n't such 
a heap bad pirate afteh all, only bad fo' liquehl " 

The Captain took coffee with us and put off 
in his unwieldy skiff to his home in an old house- 
boat half a mile down the bayou. " My old 
shack went asho' in the big stawm, and I took 
to gardenin'," he said, "and you boys betteh 
come down and camp with me befo' she blows 
up here." 

But we declined. We slept the sleep of the 
just and mosquito-bitten, despite the lizards 
racing about the dry palmettoes of our bed, and 
awoke to the loveliness of a Louisiana spring 
morning. In the old oak above the pirate's 
grave, the blackbirds and the cardinals called 
and flitted, the lake lay like a mirror, and Old 
Man Johnson's blow had not left a shadow 
across the lustrous sky. Cajun coffee, as the 
bayou men showed us, and eggs, and bread — 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKSES 45 

what a feed! We were on the last of it when 
Captain Johnson came yawing round the bend 
with that vast leaky tub of his — how the little 
old man worked it at all was a mystery. He 
was bashful as a girl when we hailed him, and 
brought him ashore for coffee. He was " run- 
nin' " a crab line and just pulled up to see how 
we slept. And while we gossiped and had more 
coffee, two pirogues of the muskrat trappers 
stole out of the reedy banks and drew down on 
us. They saw the coffee dripper and came 
ashore. Neither of the Creoles knew a word of 
English, but coffee is interpretative down Bara- 
taria way. We made another potful and 
smiled; they drank another potful and smiled, 
and waved muskrat skins and commented and 
examined again that wonderful outfit from 
treasure rods to Hen's brand new camera which 
had all the modern hyphenated attachments. 
Then more coffee, and we all stretched lazily in 
the shade by the pirate's grave and conversed 
unintelligibly but with animation. Another 
trapper came later; therefore, another pot was 



46 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

dripped. This chap knew some English — he 
was a traveled person; had been to N'Awlyins 
and to " Mawgan City." 

He was a man of affairs, too — ^he had an uncle 
who ran a potato boat on La Fourche, though he 
himself, after the manner of the Cajuns, pre- 
ferred to sell crabs at ten cents a basket and 
buy potatoes at forty, notwithstanding that the 
backyard of each of the little places along Bara- 
taria was rich vegetable mould that would raise 
anything except the exertions of the inhabitants. 
Back of the " forty arpent line " no Baratarian 
would venture save in his picayune trapping 
and turtling. We met our friend — indeed, all 
of them — that " evening " at the store down the 
bayou, when the fishers and trappers and moss- 
ers gathered for their afternoon. The children 
play among the skiffs and pirogues hauled on 
the bank, while the men watch the luggars and 
intermittent crab boats crawl past on their way 
to the big river to the North. 

Here, one of them enlarged superiorly be- 
fore his fellows and to us on the benefits of 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKSES 4T 

knowing the English. "My f adder, he know; 
my mudder, she know. She say dat way to get 
reech queek. My fadder he tell me wan time 
in de woh he up to Plaquemine in hees boat and 
he see come drift down river wan beeg barge. 
She all load wif cot', and wan Yankee sat on 
dat cot' all alone. My fadder, he had rifle and 
he t'ink : * 'Now I get reech queek ! ' He go up 
along dat barge piled so high wif cot' and he 
call to dat Yank : * You get down or I shoot 
it! ' Dat Yank whistle, and up come 'bout five 
hundred Yank! My fadder, he wan su'prised 
man! He tried to explain to dat Captain he 
only foolin'. But dat Captain he no understand 
my fadder, what he say. He get tired, he say: 
* Here, you, I got wan man to teach you Eng- 
lish 'f o' you talk me ! * And he put my fadder 
in jail wif a Creole nigger named Salvator, give 
'im wan, two, tree days learn English or he 
shoot. My ole man he kept dat nigger up all 
night, tree nights, by Gar, learnin' dat English! 
You bet, he never forgot dat English. Dat's 
why I wan educated man. My fadder, he say: 



48 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

* Steve, you learn to spek 'fo' you try to get 
reech queek wif Yankees ! ' " 

We loitered among the friendly folk upon 
their doorsteps along the single street. Three 
more " sto's " in the straggling line of houses, 
each with its raised walk above high water lead- 
ing back to the threshold. They all knew us — 
the notorietj^ of a stranger, and on such an obvi- 
ously ridiculous mission as " pleasure," had 
spread to every ear. Their unbelief was almost 
frank. Ole Man Captain told us soon enough 
that his Creole neighbors thought us either de- 
tectives or fortune tellers, or secret surveyors. 
Pleasure? — Mon Dieii, would a man come down 
the bayou in a johnboat for pleasure? Would 
he not rather go about the nickel shows in 
N'Awlyins? That was a pleasant lie to conceal 
some purpose. Also the fame of our mysteri- 
ous apparatus in the little green silk tent was 
abroad. Even Old Man Captain sanctioned 
that — a divining rod for the treasure of La 
Fittel Thence on in marsh or cypress glade 
many an eye peered out on our innocent camp 
on Bayou Villere. 




An oak that slieltoml the huccancTrs of Barataria. 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKSES 49 

It was resolved the next day that Hen should 
go back to New Orleans on a quest of the miss- 
ing canoe. I, meantime, yielded to Captain 
Johnson's fears that a norther would blow me 
off the Point — or was it his fear lest I secretly 
go to digging for Pelletier's hide-up? — and 
moved camp down the bayou to his stranded 
houseboat. I was willing to go — to the west 
stretched the wide and uninhabited lake, not a 
soul on all its sunken shores, and the weather 
was dark. While I was piling stuff in the skiff, 
Hen having taken the borrowed johnboat back 
to New Orleans by a passing steamer, I heard 
the Captain threshing in the palmettoes about 
the pirate's grave. 

When I came on him he was holding an enor- 
mous king snake by the tail and paddling him 
gently with a potato vine, chiding as one would 
a child. " Darn yo — I'll pester yo' — told yo' to 
stay in them melon vines and keep them moc- 
casins chased out o' yere ! Now yo' git back and 
hustle I" With that he threw the six-foot Mr. 
King half across the garden and turned to speak 
to me. 



50 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

" Got to lam him a little," he complained, " or 
he gets lazy as pizen!" 

But the next sunny morning I saw the Cap- 
tain's pet stretched ruminatingly out on the 
shell grave, an indifferent pupil, indeed. 

I put in an idle four days while Hen was 
away. The threatened norther splashed down 
on us the second night, and when the waves 
began to hurry across the six feet of shell dirt 
between me and the old trapper's stranded boat, 
I was glad I was away from Spanish Man's 
Point. The Captain had insisted that I bunk 
in with him, but when I saw the inside of his 
leaky shack fourteen feet by, perhaps, eight, and 
in it his cookstove, bunk, two dogs, traps, hides, 
table, and accumulation of old clothes, nets, and 
whatnot, black with smoke and grease, and aired 
by a nine-inch window, I preferred the tent. 

We had piled the palmetto and moss high in 
it, but by midnight I heard the soft lap — lap of 
tlie water driven by the gale under the canvas. 
And all night and day the little tent of eight 
pounds' weight ballooned like a paper bag in 
the storm, but bravely shut out wind and rain 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKS ES 51 

alike. But the storm did one noble service — 
not a mosquito bothered one of all the invad- 
ing hosts the other evenings brought. 

Old Man Captain Johnson and I had some 
rare fraternizing over his old wood stove those 
stormy days while the cane rattled on the sides 
of his shack. He complained that some of the 
Creoles had taken away his short ladder. " I 
need that laddeh, fo' whenever it rains I have to 
get up and put clay on this roof.'* Also he 
gently grieved against his livelihood: " Lost ma 
crab line in the last blow ; that boat trader wants 
a dolleh and fo' bits for a new one. Where I 
get a dolleh and f o' bits ? '* 

It indeed had ruined him, poor old derelict, 
wreck of the Confederacy cast up in this pool! 
He lived on crabs and fish and corn mush, never 
tasting fresh meat from one month to another. 
" Can't catch no crabs, fish don't bite, wadin' 
after moss gives me chills, and rat pelts ain't 
worth skinnin'." He sighed gently: " Some- 
times I wondeh why I eve' left that Western 
country." 

That Western country! Through four after 



52 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

years of his brave and losing fight with fortune 
I knew Old Man Captain; on stormy lake and 
deer trail, and by campfires under his palmetto 
shacks, and ever the old romance came out in 
the tales of his forty years' wandering after he 
forsook the broken South. *' Out in that West- 
ern country " — that was the way he began them 
all. He would seldom revert to ante-bellum 
days. 

" When I come back to Alabama from Look- 
out prison, afteh the Surrendeh, I was a boy 
just seventeen — and wounded. My father used 
to work a hundred and fifty niggehs. They 
wasn't one there. House was burned, weeds 
choked the cotton fields, and the Yankee cavalry 
was runnin' off the rest of ou' poor stock. Eve* 
boy I used to know in that neighborhood was 
dead or gone just like my folks. So I threw a 
saddle on the only horse the raiders had over- 
looked on ou' plantation and struck out fo' that 
Western country. Fo'ty years in that Western 
country — then I drifted back and farmed up 
the river a bit. But it's no place fo' a white 



THE OLD PIRATE FOLKSES 53 

man on those big plantations — a free man and 
a po' man. I had a dream about findin' the big 
pirates' hide-up and I come down yere. I been 
searching boys — reckon you-all'll beat me with 
that little jigger-rod findin' that treasure!" 

Vainly we protested that we had never heard 
of the pirates' treasure until we came to Bara- 
taria. Old Man Captain smiled gently. The 
coincidence was too strong. Two mysterious 
strangers with maps and a little *' jigger-rod " 
camped right on Old Spanish Man's Point, 
where the last of La Fitte's men met his death! 

*' Reckon, boys, they'll be enough fo' us-all." 
He watched the waves of Lake Salvador maul- 
ing his potato hills and roasting ear stalks. 
" Boys, when we find that big hide-up, we'll 
have some fresh meat in this camp. Crabs and 
mush and lard and coffee is good, but some fresh 
hawg-meat — if we eve' find that treasure we sure 
have hawg-meat ! " 

After supper, as we stirred our coffee, Old 
Man Captain grew a bit at ease with me and 
that fabulous fishinj; rod of Hen's. He cast an 



54, THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

eye of gentle envy on the leather case which hid 
it. 

" I done went to a medium woman up river 
afteh I had that dream and give heh fo' bits. 
She told me to buy a divinin' rod and come down 
to Barataria and find that treasure. Yes, seh, 
she done tell me about a man in La Fourche 
who had a divinin' rod. I come down through 
the bias and hunt that man up. He wanted fo' 
dollehs fo' his rod, and I didn't have no fo' dol- 
lehs. But he done let me go huntin' them pi- 
rates' hide-ups with him. We done went all 
round Lake Salvador from the Temples to 
Grand Coquille. That rod it done point no'th, 
and we follehed. It done point wes', and we 
follehed. It done point eas', but we got into 
the Barataria swamps so deep that that La 
Fourche man he done got scared and went back. 

*' He offered to sell me that rod for two dol- 
lehs, but I didn't have no two dollehs. It was 
a powe'ful bahgain, but I didn't have no two 
dollehs. And just my luck, after he quit I done 
come right slap onto Spanish Man's Point, whe' 



THE OLD PIE ATE FOLKSES 55 

them old pirate folkses sure made their big hide- 
up. Yes, seh, hyar she be, and you boys done 
got the little jigger-rod to find it! " 

Now, I leave it to you — what was I to say? 
I was thinking about that the next morning 
when I heard the Creole trappers stealing past 
to Lake Salvador in their pirogues, their soft 
voices coming above the dip of the paddles. 
Before noon they were returning, and a few 
stopped shyly to pass the day with Old Man 
Captain. They started their coffee fires in the 
white shell bank, made me presents of turtles 
and crabs, and manifested the same polite curi- 
osity about these two Yankees who studied maps 
and had no particular business in these parts 
beyond the absurd one of " pleasure." 

Old Man Captain was off to the cypress 
swamp before I was up. He had a " tote road " 
built, along which he brought the black moss 
that was later sold to the trade boats. We 
dined on fried duck and turtle — with eggs. 
Now, turtle eggs are peculiar. As Old Man 
Captain put it, *' They're cooked when they 



56 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

ain't." I didn't get much satisfaction out of 
that entree of turtle eggs. They are strange 
as Hen's sporting-goods' catalogue idea of 
camping out. You can't cook the white of a 
turtle egg. You simply can't. Or maybe " it 
is when it ain't," as Old Man Captain says. 
Turtle eggs are as peculiar as duffle sacks. 



CHAPTER III 



THE BARATARIANS 



HEN came back from New Orleans the 
fourth day, disconsolate. Not a word 
of our Old Town canoe. The shipping 
agents were as much mystified as we. There 
seemed nothing to do but stick around Old Man 
Captain's camp and await it. Meantime we 
went hunting with Old Man Captain and his 
pups, Ponto and Flora. They were " powe'ful 
for turtles," and we secured five. Also turtle 
eggs — and we had had turtle eggs for three days. 
Old Man Captain would take his two dogs and 
put off through the swamp, Hen and I follow- 
ing with the gun and camera. 

The turtles were out on the ridges now to lay 
their everlasting eggs, and presently we would 

57 



58 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

hear Ponto and Flora barking away in a bit of 
latanier palm scrub. Over rotten logs and 
shaking bog and under vines and gray moss 
plumes hanging from the cypress we struggled 
to come upon the dogs baying at a perturbed 
Mobilian who wanted to hasten back to the 
swamp pools but declined with the dogs bawl- 
ing in his face. Capture was simple. Old Man 
Captain merely turned the turtle on his back, 
gagged him with a bit of moss and later, on 
our return, strung him on a pole which we car- 
ried end and end triumphantly back to camp. 

Ponto and Flora were great pups, and if 
Hen had ever got his multi-speed, bi-chromatic, 
double-action camera to working, we would 
have taken their pictures baying a turtle. But 
Hen's camera was as accurately cantankerous 
as the automatic rifle or the duffle sacks — or tur- 
tle eggs. We read all the directions, unscrewed 
and screwed up all the attachments, and still no 
one could make head or tail of that camera. 

The next day the norther blew again — worse 
than ever. The tiny ridge of land shook with 



THE BARATARIANS 59 

the mauling waves off the lake. Behind was the 
deep swamp with the backing waters of the 
Gulf curling up inch by inch until it was run- 
ning in our tent, which tore and yanked at the 
guy ropes. At sunset, when we were making 
up the damp blankets, we discovered a five-foot 
cottonmouth under the palm leaves which had 
served to keep our bed out of the water. There 
was some excitement. We killed that snake and 
with a candle made a hairline search of that bed, 
I tell you. Old Man Johnston added to our 
night's comfort by amiably remarking : " 01' 
Misteh Cottonmouth just naturally curious to 
find out what yo' tent is, so he crawl in. Yo' 
better stir up yo' beds twice a day. 01' moc- 
casin done been heap poison fo' a ISTo'then man." 

We certainly stirred up our beds often after 
that! 

The next day was better. Hen went catfish- 
ing off the log rafts, and I listened to Old Man 
Captain expound religion as he sat on the edge 
of his crab float. 

*' The Lawd done tell us His disciples went 



60 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

in sheepskins, but sometimes I tell the Lawd I 
ain't even got a sheepskin to cover mah holi- 
ness. I live out yere among the frawgs and the 
bats and the owls and the 'gators, but I think 
a heap, and sometimes I get up o' nights and 
walk back and forth from the bia to the swamp 
callin' on the Lawd if I been Holiness enough 
for His Elect." 

He eyed the two hound pups gulping the corn 
bread he crumbled for them. " I used to won- 
deh, when I was in the ahmy, fo' I knew this 
Nation was in fo' a mighty judgment fo' all 
this killin' of Indians and slavin' of niggers. 
Yes, seh, it was a foolish war. I was in twenty- 
six fights and wounded and a prisoneh, and 
when I come home I say: * Motheh, I'm a Lin- 
coln man now.'" He sighed: "And if that 
man Lincoln had only lived? " — again his sigh 
and his blue eyes grew vague — *' I reckon I'd 
have had heart to stay home South instead of 
drift out in that Western country. He was ou* 
friend! " 

Brave, lonely soul building his storm-beaten 



THE BARATARIANS 61 

thatch, fighting for his crop against the en- 
croaching Gulf, calling on God to judge his 
Holiness, magnanimous always in his words for 
the conquerors of the Lost South with which he 
had gone down to ruin — never in all the years 
of our friendship, did Old Man Captain fail us 
in his gentleness, his honor. All that was in his 
palm thatch, hung about with traps and ragged 
clothes and flotsam he offered without apology, 
without pretense or appeal to sympathy. He 
had the clearest, most dispassionate view of 
some conditions. 

" I come down hyar in the swamps, fo' I 
wanted a place where a man can be a man. Up 
in the big plantation country the's no place fo' 
a white man. White man don't get justice 
around the big plantations. The planters don't 
want no stranger who might talk to their nig- 
gers too much. Yo' see, they work the niggers 
at about fo' hundred per cent, on their money. 
Niggers puts in a crop and just befo' Christmas 
he wants a little money, just as he's always got 
a little money and some sto' stuff advanced him. 



62 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

The boss gives him a little money. Well, the 
fool nigger he celebrates on his Christmas 
money, and after January first they take all 
the niggers one by one into the office to close 
the year's account. The's fo' or five white men 
sittin' round that office and Mr. Nigger sees a 
gun or two round handy. The clerk he figgers 
a bit over his book, while the nigger stands with 
his hat off listenin'. Pretty soon the boss takes 
a paper from the clerk and he says to the nig- 
ger: * Jim, he's yo' year's due — thirty- fo' dol- 
lehs.' 

" The nigger he just stands starin'. * Thirty- 
f o' dollehs ! Why, boss, that all I got comin' ? * 
Then if he asks fo' an account the white men 
look peculiar. Nigger's eye is on them guns. 
But the boss reads off his account. The' it all is. 
Now the fool nigger neve' kept no account. He 
can't read or write and he can't remembeh what 
he bought at the sto'. He neve' saw no money 
all yea'. He just traded in his pay checks. 
Well, the' is Mr. Nigger, and the's the fou' or 
five white men and a gun or two. Nigger don't 



THE BARATARIANS 63 

kick. He fiddles his hat a while and goes off 
with what they give him. If he kicked, they'd 
beat him up with the butt of a gun and tell folks 
he got insolent. And he don't sue no white man 
either up in that plantation country. Some nig- 
gers have sued white men — and they generally 
disappear curiously. Sometimes they find 'em 
floatin' in the river. If nigger goes to another 
plantation the boss sends that account afteh 
him — and he works it out. 

" Yes, seh — clean slavery just as it was in 
Alabama whe' my father worked a hundred and 
fifty niggers. And it's no place fo' a po' white 
man. He ain't wanted. He goes to the plan- 
tation sto' and he has to pay the nigger price, 
and if he kicks he gets nigger justice. And the 
nigger price is fo' hundred per cent., and nigger 
justice is the butt end of a gun. I'm one of 
Lee's old men, and I wouldn't stand it. I come 
down in these hyar swamps where they's free 
men. Lots o' snakes and owls and 'gators and 
skeeters, but it's a white man's country! Yes, 
seh — a wJiite man's country! " 



64 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Then he went on with his dry little chuckle: 
"But with you Yankees comin' down hyar, I 
don't know. Up in the Delta they say that if 
any smart Yankee comes down the' with five 
thousand dollehs, in ten yea's he can make fifty 
thousand — out of the niggers. Fine country fo' 
cawn and cane and cotton, but the principal in- 
dustry is niggers ! " 

He looked slowly off to the north: "But I 
done think if Abe Lincoln had lived, he'd have 
found some way fo' us to live and be square 
together. Rich white men, po* white men, and 
niggehs. Yes, seh, he was po' white himself." 

He told us confidentially of the way the 
swamp trappers regarded us. He himself had 
rather got over the idea that we were after Jean 
La Fitte's gold with the little "jigger-rod," 
having watched Hen thresh the bayou after the 
voracious gars. 

" These Cajuns they think yo' detectives. 
These woods hide a bit of men who come down 
in the free state o' Barataria fo' they own rea- 
sons. Or else yo' surveyors. First they thought 




m 






THE BARATARIANS Go. 

yo' was runnin' a show, but yo' tent is too small. 
They ain't scared of yo' findin' treasure, fo' they 
been diggin' up these shell mounds fo' a hun- 
dred yea's themselves." 

The Cajuns looked with indifferent eyes on the 
efforts to reclaim the ancient Berthaud planta- 
tion. They had trapped and hunted over its 
abandoned fields and in the swamps so long that 
they looked on its eighteen thousand acres as 
their own. We learned all this when Hen went 
down to the old house among the live oaks. He 
came back to say we were invited to call, and 
that he heard there was a young lad3^ There- 
fore we took off our flannel shirts and washed 
them in Old Man Captain's mush kettle. Now, 
the only thing I have against washing a fellow's 
shirt in a mush kettle is that he boils mush in 
as fast as he boils dirt out. It was a bad job. 

And the next day Hen and I wore those two 
bemushed shirts down to the plantation. And 
there wasn't any young lady. (I thought so. 
They are as unsatisfactory as turtle eggs.) 

The plantation folk, who were lonely Ohioans 



66 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

making a vain effort to clean up the ancient rice 
fields, were aghast at our idea of that Gulf trip 
in a canoe. They wanted us to stay and help 
fight mosquitoes and grow up with the country. 
Thanks, no. It was no place for, a baldheaded 
man, in mosquito time. Besides, there was the 
Fountain of Youth. We were headed >vrong 
just at present owing to that confounded canoe, 
but we expected to face about soon. 

Old Man Captain was greatly curious after 
our visit to the " big rich folks " on the plan- 
tation. He confessed shortly that it was be- 
cause he was afraid they, too, were after the 
pirates' hide-up. What else would bring Yan- 
kees down to Barataria? And he was still a 
trifle suspicious of us and the *' jigger-rod." 

Hen was fishing the next day when Old Man 
Captain shyly approached me. We had been 
fraternizing on that most intimate of all out- 
door discussions — grub. Old Man Captain 
" loved " dandelion greens and crabs and mush 
with sugar and lard. He didn't hanker after 
Hen's dehydrated vegetables, nor our com- 



THE BARATARIANS 67 

pressed tea tablets nor chrysolose sweetening. 
Now I didn't either. Old Man Captain and I 
were a bit primitive in our tastes and distrust 
of catalogue camp outfits. I suppose that was 
the reason Old Man Captain confided in me. 

*' Reckon, while Mr. Hen's a-fishin', you-all 
wouldn't like to take a little run off'n the big 
cj^press? '* 

"Treasure?" I ventured. 

Old Man Captain smiled deprecatingly. 
" Sho' hit it. It's somewhe' yandeh." He 
waved his hand vaguely toward the blue wall 
of the flooded forest to the North. *' That me- 
dium woman said three oak trees on a point, and 
the water runnin' east past an old plantation." 
Then he leaned to me and whispered mysteri- 
ously. " And I saw the chart. Sho' did. Could 
a bought that chart, but I didn't have no eight 
dollehs. She was a fine woman — a widda 
woman. I always did love spiritual business. 
When I met her up river she tried to get me to 
quit drif tin'. Says she: * A rollin' stone gath- 
ers no moss.' Saj^s I: * Widda, and a settin' 



68 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

hen neve' gets fat.* That widda woman sho' 
took to me. She wanted me to stay, but when 
I wouldn't she showed me her chart and says: 
* You go down river and look f o' the pirates* 
hide-up.' Then she describe it just as it lay 
hyar. Three oaks on a point and water flowin* 
east past an old plantation. When I struck 
this point, and the Cajuns show me that old 
grave and whe' they dug up the shell banks, I 
didn't say nothin'. But I thinks: ' Widda, yo* 
sho' air spiritual. Hyar's the hide-up ! * '* 

"Honest, Cap?'* 

" Right yere ! I been all over the rivers out 
in that Western country. I come down the Rio 
Grande and up the Brazos and down White 
River, and across the Sabine, smellin' eve'whe' 
fo' treasure. When I got to La Fourche coun- 
try I began to get wahm. I look at eve' planta- 
tion fo' the picture as the widda woman de- 
scribed it to me. I crossed Lake Salvador in 
my ol' johnboat, and when I come into Bia Vil- 
lere I shout : * Widda, yo' sho' air spiritual I ' " 
He pointed out the door of his shack. " Three 



THE BARATARIANS 69 

trees and the water flowin' east. And Ber- 
thaud's is the ol' plantation." 

I sat down on Old Man Captain's crab box 
and looked around. Confound the luck, couldn't 
Hen and I ever get away from Women and 
Romance? But there they were shining in Old 
Man Captain's eyes I 

" Hyar she be ! " crowed Old Man Captain. 
" And yo' two boys happened along to help me 
find it." 

I looked out at Hen fishing off the log raft. 
He sat in the sun, clothed in nothing except a 
cigarette and his faith that the fishing was good. 
The Cajun trappers paddling home called gen- 
tle advice : " Man, yo' put on yo' shirt or yo' 
get f eveh ! " 

He waved his cigarette airily. Old Fitzende 
paddled on, shaking his head. These bayou men 
fear the sun and breeze, but they will shut them- 
selves in their twelve-by-fourteen windowless 
board shacks, batten the door tight to keep out 
mosquitoes, and sleep night long. They will 
run a trap-line twelve miles through the swamp 



70 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

in muck to their waists, but if one took a real 
swim they would regard him as ready for the 
last sacrament. I think they imagined Hen and 
I were both a bit crazy. Who else but a lunatic 
would sprawl out full length on the log raft 
doing nothing for hours but listen to the mock- 
ing birds in the green cane these sunny March 
mornings ! 

As I said, I looked at Hen. He did not ap- 
pear to be a seeker of the Golden Fleece. An 
Argonaut should have more hair and ambition. 
Then I looked at Old Man Captain. There 
was romance. There was adventure. There 
was eternal youth. I almost wished that Hen 
and I did not know so much. I would have 
liked to go off with Old Man Captain in the 
leaky johnboat to dig up something or other. 
Every man ought to have a widda woman who 
would send him out to find treasure. But when 
he's thirty-five he's either got his, or lost a deal 
of interest. I wanted to set off gallantly with 
Old Man Captain on that rousing treasure hunt, 
but I just couldn't. The cities had taken it out 
of me. 



THE BARATARIANS, 71 

" Old Man," I answered, " it would be great 
stuff, but the mosquitoes off in that swamp " 

That ended it. Old Man Captain knew me 
for a Philistine. He turned and began baiting 
his crab-line, removing Ponto from the basket 
with a gentle push of his foot. " I gin that dog 
a half pan of mush day befo* yesterday, and 
here he is wnth his ribs bellerin' out like a luggar 
sail, actin' like he was hungry.'* 

I w^ashed dishes from the raft end while the 
Captain ran his crab-line. More pirogue men 
paddled past to chide Hen. " Man, whe' yo' 
clothes? Yo' get shakes sho' in dat sun!" 

A lanky- jawed fisher came ashore to protest 
to us. All the village was talking about it down 
below, he said, this Yankee who enjoyed fishing 
without a shirt to his back. And when Hen 
finally tired of the argument, dived off the logs 
and came sputtering up yards away, there was 
a chorus of dismay. No Baratarian ever went 
swimming. The bayou was full of sharks. And 
twelve-foot gars. And snakes. And 'gators. 
The trappers awaited the tragedy. But Hen 
climbed ashore, found his shirt, beat the mush 



72 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

out of it across a china berry tree and put it 
on. "Hi, let's eat!" he said. "Antoine, have 
coffee with us ! " 

That was unnecessary. Every pirogue man 
had his own tiny dripper, and on every canoe, 
or from a few heaped twigs on the white shell 
shore, a coffee fire was going. Old Man Cap- 
tain, as usual, had some observation to make 
about the cooking. " I once knew a nigger from 
Grand Lake who put crabs in his coffee fo* 
breakfast. . . . But I'd rather have lemon." 

Antoine explained the turtle industry. " I 
catch heem out in the prairie by dem mud holes. 
I hook heem over, and tie hees tail and put a 
stick in hees mout' and send him to N'Awlyins 
for seben cents hees pound. He come out dat 
bia to lay hees eggs. M'sieu, yo' want some 
turtle eggs dis mawnin'?" 

" No! " we roared. " Everything in camp is 
full of turtle eggs! " 

*' Except me," added Hen; " I decline. Cap, 
you can't chuck another turtle egg down me! 
I'll take crabs in my coffee, if it's customary 



THE BARATARIANS 73 

in the best families down here, but no turtle 
eggs." 

A week longer we camped along Bayou Vil- 
lere. We caught shrimp, as they showed us, by 
letting down a green willow or mangrove until 
the crustaceans gathered in its branches, and 
then lifting it deftly over a dip net. We shot 
a "^ dos Gris " or two, although the duck season 
was over, and landed a fourteen-pound catfish 
one morning with great eclat. Now and then a 
tradeboat, gasoline propelled, or a red-sailed 
luggar drifted past. Once a two-stack steamer 
came out of Lake Salvador and went up the 
winding bayou to the Mississippi. And all the 
lazy, colorful, primitive life of the south coast 
got into us. 

" If we don't move on soon somewhere," mur- 
mured Hen, " blamed if I ever will. What was 
it we came down here for, anyhow? Oh, yes — 
that Ponce de Leon stunt. It's a good thing he 
didn't stop anywhere to go catfishing off a log 
raft. There's only one thing wrong with this 
fishing down in Louisiana. A fellow just gets 



74 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

settled back in the scow, his eyes shut, listening 
to the birds, and the breeze and the sun makes 
him think of Paradise when some fool catfish 
comes along and yanks the line. Then a fellow 
must sit up and haul it in, or bait his hook, or 
do something." 

Old Man Captain the next day nudged me 
and winked at Hen out on the bayou. " That 
air boy's fishin' without any bait because he 
don't want the fish to disturb him! " 

" Then," I retorted, "it's time to move on!" 

But where to? No word of that special-to- 
order deep sea-going canoe. 

"As an expedition to out-game old Ponce de 
Leon," murmured Hen, as we lay under the 
green silk tent, " this is getting frazzled. For 
Heaven's sake, what is the Cap'n cooking now? 
Turtle eg " 

No. We all got together, even Hen working, 
and dined excellently on baked catfish, sweet 
corn, boiled ham, rice jamhelaya (in which Mon- 
sieur Perrine had instructed us), and Cajun 
coffee. 



THE BARATARIANS 75 

There appeared after dinner, as we smoked 
under the china berry tree, one Unc' McFrancis, 
a venerable and dignified colored gentleman. 
He was a pensioner, veteran of a Ken- 
tucky Union regiment, and also had once been 
a slave up river. Unc' McFrancis talked of 
many things, catfish, philosophy, and our par- 
ticular chances of getting anywhere from Bara- 
taria. " Most folks don't come here," he said. 
" And what do, dey gin'erally git away soon — 
or else stay. If Ah had as much money as you- 
all, Ah'd git away." 

Of course we talked treasure. Everyone did 
sooner or later. Unc' McFrancis took no stock 
in the La Fitte treasure yarns. " Dem ol' pi- 
rates folkses, dey didn't bury nuffin round hyar. 
And if dey did, dey'd dig it up again. Ah 
reckon pirate folkses air just like other folkses. 
Ain't goin' to leave any money round the yahd 
fo' chickens to scratch — no, seh!" 

Old Man Captain looked pained. Romance 
had taken another jolt. I tried to cheer him up 
by arguing for the cause. But Unc' McFrancis 



76 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

was not to be argued. " Ain't but two things 
su'tin in this worl'. One is livin' and the other 
is killin'. Money, hit belongs up in them oncer- 
tain things o' this life. Great wealth, hit brings 
its troubles. Once Ah knew a colo'd man that 
won eighty dollehs with dice. He nebbeh was 
no good afteh dat. If dem ol' pirate folkses 
were to come back to me in a vision and show 
me dat money, Ah'd say: * Lawd, yo' put away 
dis temptation ! ' " 

Unc' McFrancis was a deacon of the " Bap- 
tist St. John" church, which we were told was 
*' up de bia." He produced a card and an awl 
and Hen and I punched holes in the margin, 
which holes cost us ten cents each. Unc' Mc- 
Francis said it was to buy a stove for the Bap- 
tist St. John congregation next winter. Also, 
we could punch three holes for a quarter. But 
Hen punched his hole extra large and we let 
it go at that. He tried to explain that large 
holes meant more Holiness, but Unc' McFran- 
cis' theology had not got that far. 

He swapped turtle yarns and fish yarns with 



THE BARATARIANS 77 

us, and when Old Man Captain complained of 
Ponto's appetite, Unc' rejoiced. " I got er 
dawg down the bia dat I hatter keep tied up 
with a piece of vanilla rope he so powe'ful hon- 
gry. He grab one piece o' hoecake in his mout' 
and anodder piece under each paw and den he 
look 'round fo' mo'. Sometimes dat dawg al- 
most human." 

He went off at mosquito time, which is coin- 
cident with bedtime. The next day we saw the 

entire colored population of Barataria in five 
skiffs starting from Bayou Villere to the place 

of worship. They were a picturesque fleet, the 
women in bright turbans, the men in derbies 
and stiff shirts pulling at the oars. The skiffs 
followed in line among the purple water hya- 
cinths under the live oaks, and when they had 
rounded the point I heard Unc' McFrancis: 

" All Ah want is free salvation. 
And fifty acres in mah ol' plantation — 
O Lawd ; how long ? " 



CHAPTER IV 



A-CRUISE ON THE " TIGER " BOAT 



MONDAY morning Hen and I idled 
down to the village two miles below. 
We went in a borrowed johnboat. Yoii 
can go nowhere except by boat. The deep 
swamp rises back of the low ridge along the 
bayou side, and beyond the first fringe of prai- 
rie cane, the black, grim cypress forest. None 
venture there except the trappers and the tie 
cutters. Barataria village is a long straggling 
row of forlorn houses facing the lily-filled bayou. 
Under the live oaks on the shell heaps the fish- 
ing skiffs are dragged; and here men sit of 
afternoons baiting the crab-lines with " sinies." 
Sinies are beef sinews as it took us some time 
to ascertain. Nothing else will resist the vora- 
cious maw of a Baratarian crab. 

78 



A-CRUISE ON THE " TIGER " 79 

Mornings the village street, or rather the 
bank, was deserted. The male population was 
off " beyond the forty-arpent line " trapping; or 
running the crab and fish lines in Lake Salva- 
dor, a mile to the west. The trapping, save for 
the muskrats, was about done. We were shown, 
at Manila village later, three thousand dollars' 
worth of mink and otter pelts. The trappers, 
however, realize little. With all their hardy 
work, the trade boats and the " sto' " makes 
the middleman's profit. 

The crab fishing was now the main depend- 
ence. But even at this the Baratarians prefer 
to sell crabs at fifteen cents a basket and buy 
potatoes at forty, rather than attempt to put in 
a garden on the rich strip of soil back of their 
shacks. In some of the tumble-down gardens 
oranges were still golden on the trees, and un- 
kempt roses ran over the fences. But on the 
banks, among the abandoned luggars, the Ca- 
juns sat at their net-mending and baiting of 
crab-lines. In vain the new proprietor of Ber- 
thaud's plantation across the bayou offered day 



80 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

labor. No one wanted the Yankee's dollars. 

I made a trip on a gasoline luggar to the city 
that week to ask further of our missing canoe. 
" Juan, the Manilaman," was the master of The 
Young Lady, and now we first heard of the Fili- 
pino colonies of the lower lakes, the Chino-Fili- 
pino peoples who had been established on the 
south coast for forty years before the average 
American had the name Filipino brought to his 
ears by Dewey's guns. I told Juan, the Manila- 
man, we would surely accept his invitation to 
sojourn there. The little old tub churned up 
through Lake Salvador past its sunken, lonely 
shores, around Couba island and into Bayou 
Sennett, and at evening we reached Westwego. 
I was struck by the names of the boats we passed 
in the swamp channels . " Just Like You/' 
''Double Trouble/' '' Killgloom/' ''The Good 
Child/' " Visaijan/' " PuriUj/' Few of them, 
however, used their picturesque red sails, for the 
gas motor is fast supplanting wind power. 

I came back after another irritating inter- 
view with the steamship people. Not a word of 




^ 






o 



A-CRUISE ON THE " TIGER " 81 

our lost canoe. Hen was much dejected. He 
denounced Ponce de Leon. His gun had rusted, 
the camera wouldn't work, and some Cajun had 
presented hnn with more turtle eggs. Old Man 
Captain was a curious spectator of Hen's strug- 
gle with that multi-speed, bifurcated camera. 

" When you boys get that air machine fixed, 
I want you to take them dawgs. Them dawgs 
would make fine scenery. I always did want 
some of them pictorial pictures." 

He had riled Hen by asking if he wasn't a 
barber. " You-all done somehow look like a 
barber. I used to know a barber out in that 
Western country." 

Turtle eggs, rusted gun, camera out of whack, 
and mistaken for a barber! Hen had lost his 
illusions a bit. 

*' Who? " he asked with some asperity, " ever 
proposed this idea? " 

" I have forgotten," I answered. " But we're 
here. But even if it is a lawless country they 
can't compel you to eat any more turtle eggs. 
Antoine says there's a boat coming past here 



82 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

to-night for the lower lakes. Let's board her 
and go down. We can just as well wait for 
our canoe down there as up here. Then we can 
come back to New Orleans and paddle to Flor- 
ida when we're notified that it's arrived. The 
Fountain of Youth, my boy, has never yet run 
dry!" 

He waved a rubber-back hair brush at me and 
was glum. The atmosphere of camp, in fact, 
was so surcharged that night that I got out an 
hour before daylight, took Old Man Captain's 
johnboat and his sawed-off shotgun, and went 
to the lake. It was a wondrous dawn. I 
rounded the point past the spot where they will 
tell you that two slave ships, driven from the 
Gulf by a British sloop and unable to smuggle 
their cargoes safely up to the plantation coun- 
try, were scuttled with their human cargoes bat- 
tened beneath the hatches, and paddled on south 
along the sunken shores. The lonely lake was 
a mirror reflecting the giant cypress, and when 
I drew the boat into the watery aisles among 
the mangrove clumps, the damp, sweet breath 



A-CRUISE ON THE "TIGER" 83 

of the swamp was like the perfume of a florist's 
shop. I landed on the only bit of ground above 
water, and as I was carefully testing the muck 
with the butt of the shotgun, a dos gris arose 
from the grass beyond. And I dropped him, 
closed season or no. We were done with turtle 
eggs. And I had understood that the game 
wardens never invaded the Free State of Bara- 
taria. 

I found that black and gray dos gris among 
the latanier palms and threw him in the john- 
boat. Then I wandered into the watery wilder- 
ness back of the first fringe of giant cypress 
thrusting their grim buttresses up through the 
black, still water. The plumes of the Spanish 
moss hung straight from every limb and gave 
the forest the majestic severity of a cathedral, 
beyond whose fluted columns one saw the tur- 
quoise sky. And how the birds sang! Mocking 
birds and blackbirds, with now and then a car- 
dinal like a flame through the gray moss stream- 
ers. On the little hummocky glades flowers were 
everywhere, white dewberry bloom, a yellow 



84 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

flag and a purplish orchid-like blossom, while 
in all the water spaces the wild hyacinths raised 
their colorful profusion. Every log and stump 
was red and yellow mottled with fungi, and 
from these and the lush grasses and the young 
palmettoes the water drops sparkled until the 
whole wet, still forest was brilliant. Still, did 
I say? Never did one hear such unceasing 
melody ! 

And while I was sitting there on a rotted log 
in the midst of all this loveliness, back on the 
stern of the johnboat at the lake edge, a parish 
game warden sat looking down on that poor, 
anemic no-account duck that had happened to 
run in the way of my shotgun. I found him 
there when I went out. We had quite a con- 
versation. We discussed the Louisiana game 
laws. I'll never tell you just exactly how we 
adjudicated the transgression. It concluded 
with a duck dinner; duck with turnips, Creole 
style. The warden cooked the duck, drank 
most of our whiskey, and departed amicably. 
After all, what is a duck between friends? 



A-CRUISE ON THE ''TIGER" 85 

This is a wholly truthful narrative, so I must 
confess to the duck, the game warden, the din- 
ner; and even how Hen swore when he fell over 
the hound pup and spilled the bacon. Old Man 
Captain " lammed " the pup. 

" I sho' got it in for that air dawg, anyhow. 
He grabbed my eye-glasses and ran out and 
dropped 'em in the bia, and here I just done 
got a new almanack off' n that game warden's 
boat. But I reckon it don't make much differ- 
ence what time it is." He tried on my glasses, 
and then Hen's. *' You young fellers oughtn't 
to be wearin' glasses. I reckon you-all do it 
just to be in city style." 

I dozed away a peaceful afternoon under the 
oaks while Hen and Old Man Captain executed 
a dance about the pirate's grave trying to obtain 
a snapshot of the Captain's king snake. They 
held him up on sticks and he would slide off; 
they tried to flatten him out on the log and he 
would wriggle under it, before Hen could get 
his hifalutin' camera to working. The king 
snake refused to be " scenery," as the Captain 



86 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

had it; and finally crawled in his hole under the 
log and wiggled a derisive tail at them. Every 
trapper and cane basket maker passing the 
bayou witnessed the altercation. It confirmed 
their suspicions about our sanity; Le Nom de 
Dieu! For what would any man want a picture 
of a snake? 

One of the Adam boys stopped off as we were 
getting breakfast the next morning and had the 
inevitable coffee, sitting on his pirogue seat 
above an unappetizing mess of dead muskrats, 
as he stirred it. 

" If you-all want to get down to Little Lake, 
dat Tiger boat he come along to-day. He tak 
you-all to Clark CJiemeref* 

We made further inquiries. We were told 
the Tiger was again " loaded with lumber and 
ladies." That was not reassuring, but we de- 
cided to pull up camp and take a chance. Old 
Man Captain was grieved. In our two weeks' 
sojourn with him he had had the first real hu- 
man companionship in forty years. " Don't 
know just how I took to you-all." He added: 



A-CRUISE ON THE ''TIGER" 87 

" I sho' hate to have you go away." He went 
within his frail old shack, fumbled about among 
the rusty traps and crab nets and came out wilh 
a battered tin box. From its plunder — old ac- 
count books of the plantations, dirty twine, al- 
manacs, match safes, and tobacco crumbs — he 
took an old German silver watch. There were 
no works in it, but he gave it to me with a 
gracious solemnity. 

" Fo' a keepsake. Had it long befo' I went 
out in that Western country. I almost give it 
to the widda woman, but I thought I'd wait till 
I found the treasure and then give her some 
jewelry. But I want you boys to have it; and 
when you come back this hyar bia, mebbe I'll 
have peas and new 'taters, if the tide don't wash 
me off'n this Point. And the hound pups'U 
have better mannehs, and the Cajuns won't pes- 
ter you with so much turtle eggs." 

Good Old Man Captain! When the Tiger 
boat, " loaded with lumber and ladies," came 
along that evening and wheezed to the bank at 
our hail and we piled our traps on the lumber 



88 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

among the ladies, I felt a keen regret at part- 
ing. He stood long looking after us, the pups 
about his feet, in front of his camp, waving a 
farewell — the simplest, kindliest, most honest 
soul I ever knew, a soldier and a gentleman. 
Never once in our intercourse had his courtesy 
been wanting. When we were packing up and 
conferring as to what we could leave with him 
as a parting gift, he went aside with rare tact 
that we might not be embarrassed in this discus- 
sion. We had hard work persuading the old 
Confederate to accept anything, even with his 
larder at beggary's point : and four months later, 
when we paddled to his camp, Hen and I dis- 
covered a little row of soup and tomato cans on 
his shelf — untouched. 

" Thought mebbe you boys would get back 
this way some time, and be short of grub," he 
smiled. " So I just kept it all for you! " 

But this evening we left him, and the Tiger 
boat beat out into a lake of golden light, such 
a sunset and such a water mirror as might be 
part of fairyland. Afar was the gray-green 



A-CIWISE ON THE " TIGER " 89 

cypress forest, in the middle distance the yel- 
low prairie cane, and for all the world like a 
Northern wheat field. Everywhere we were 
astonished at this verisimiltude. One seemed to 
see level fields, well-kept farmsteads, hill ranges 
and valley depths, and it was hard to believe 
that it was all lonely and uninhabited swamp 
wilderness. 

The Tiger boat throbbed on, turned south and 
followed the path of the rising moon across the 
silent lake. For Bayou Perot she was bound, 
and as Hen and I sat on our luggage on the 
cabin top, there seemed room for none else, so 
cluttered up was she with ladies. Also babies, 
men, mischievous boys, a cargo of boards, gro- 
ceries, bread in gunny sacks, barrels of red wine, 
and crab baskets. The Creole girls sat on the 
tiny foredeck with their feet hanging down, and 
as the moon grew higher they began singing to 
the tinkle of a guitar which a dark-eyed boy 
played from the pilot house top. The Tiger 
boat made no more than five miles an hour, but 
no one cared. 



90 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Captain " Jack " Hammond offered whiskey 
and coffee, refused any passage money, and said 
he'd take us " somewhere," adding that we 
ought to go forward and " wiggle round among 
the ladies." He was glad to acquire us, it 
seemed, for he was taking them to a " ball " 
down below, if the boat got there. If not to- 
night, then to-morrow night — he'd stay over 
for it. 

That seemed good. Going somewhere to a 
ball, if the boat got there, along with a cargo 
of lumber and ladies. The Tiger boat turned 
down Bayou Perot, between level fields of 
marsh grass and water shimmering in the moon. 
Now and then a hail would come off ahead, 
above the voices of the singing girls, Jack Ham- 
mond would bawl to the engine boy, the wheez- 
ing motor would stop, and a lean-faced muskrat 
trapper would shoot his pirogue alongside. 
There would be an animated search among the 
ladies and lumber for some stuff he had ordered, 
someone would toss down a few loaves of bread 
out of the gunny sacks, and on we would go. 



A'CRUISE ON THE "TIGER" 91 

Now and then one of the trappers would hang 
alongside for a mile and drink whiskey with the 
skipper; and at Point Legarde, we waited an 
hour while crew, Captain, guests, and natives 
argued the price of catfish. Indeed, so late was 
it by now that the girls began to clamor about 
the " ball." 

"M'sieu Jack, we sho' never go down with 
this Tiger boat again. You-all ain't a-goin' to 
get anywhere till mawnin'." 

That was exactly what happened. It was 
long after midnight when the Tiger boat 
reached Clark Cheniere. By that time the fid- 
dler and the guitar player had absorbed so much 
of the Tiger boat's liquid cargo that they were 
asleep on top of the lumber, and the girls 
climbed down in a skiff and were sent ashore 
with many a tart comment on Jack Hammond's 
dilatory schedule. They had cast many a curi- 
ous glance at the two strangers sitting on the 
duffle sacks amidships, but to Captain Jack's 
repeated invitations to " go mix with the girls " 
we had been reluctantly inclined. The bayou 



92 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

girls were coy. The skiff load put off and dis- 
appeared into the fringe of shadows above a 
white, gleaming shell bank, which was all we 
could see of the Cheniere. Then Hen and I 
rolled in our blankets and slept face up to the 
moon, with the pleasant voices of the island girls 
coming over the water. Very romantic, you say. 
But the Tiger boat had many sorts of ants and 
bugs and all of these came for'ard to take the 
strangers in. 



CHAPTER V 



THE OLD STO BALLS 



THE next morning we took in Clark Che- 
niere. We had to get out early, for the 
entire population came in skiffs and pi- 
rogues and climbed on board. We made coffee 
on top of the lumber with many comments from 
the sjDectators. Everybody knew us. The tale 
had spread. The soft-voiced Creoles fingered 
our camp gear and discussed our khaki trousers. 
They plied the Tiger boat crew with questions 
about us. To us they were courteously shy, but 
curious; so much so that finally we asked Jack 
Hammond if we could not be put ashore and 
find a camp in some spot more secluded than the 
village street, which seemed to be all there was 
to Clark Chenlere. It was merely a dozen un- 
painted houses straggling along the white shells 

93 



94 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

facing the open roadstead where a score of lug- 
gars and a few gasoline boats lay. Among these 
house yards a few great oak trees arose, and 
beyond them stretched the illimitable salt prai- 
rie. Far above this and the seemingly shoreless 
open water to the south one saw other oak 
groves (cJienieres) . That was all except the blue 
water and the bluer sky. 

A few silent groups of seine menders and crab 
fishers baiting their lines squatted under the 
china berry bushes and mangroves. From one 
of the watery lanes leading from the marsh to 
the backyards of the row of houses came a soli- 
tary rat trapper. We heard the harsh cry of a 
rail from the salt pools, and snipe were running 
on the beaches at each end of the habitable shore. 
We idled among the groups all morning long. 
A shy, curious people of indecipherable blood — 
Chino-Italian, Filipino, Spanish, Creole, Indian, 
renegade Irish, or American. The sun had put 
the same swarthy touch to all, and years of con- 
tact had fused their speech to that droll dialect 
of the Cajun, which is more like the tongue of 
the tough slums of the Northern towns than any- 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 95 

thing else. " Dis," " dat," " fadder," " modder," 
— that was what we heard from them all, regard- 
less of blood-type. 

In front of each house, drawn up on the shell 
beach, were their pirogues. Trapping in winter, 
shrimp hauling in summer, selling the catch to 
the little gasoline boats which chugged down 
from the river weekly — this was their round of 
life. The gray houses seemed forlorn and un- 
tenanted, the glassless windows barred. A bare- 
footed, dark-skinned woman peered furtively at 
us as we passed, and children played among the 
rotted hulks of ancient luggars drawn on the 
beach. In each yard was a charcoal furnace 
on which the cooking was done, and this was 
usually shaded by a palm thatch or a grass plait. 
There was a water famine imminent, for the 
April skies had been cloudless for some weeks 
and the only fresh water within sixty miles of 
the Cheniere was that caught in the cisterns from 
the roofs. 

Hen and I put up our little silk tent on the 
gleaming shells just around a point from the 
village. To eastward swept broad Bayou St. 



96 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Denis, winding on through salt marshes to Bara- 
taria Bay and then the Gulf. Across were 
" Africa," " John-the-Fool," " Des Amoureaux," 
" Old Cheniere," each a lonely camp of the 
hardy, island people who, for a century have 
defied the Gulf hurricanes and clung to their 
frail homes. There was very little land within 
miles that rose more than twenty inches above 
the Gulf tides, and when the sou'easters blow 
the natives gather about their boats, for few 
there are who do not have tragic memories in 
their families of the storms that destroyed Che- 
niere Caminada with its twelve hundred souls, or 
the Last Island hurricane, which Lafcadio 
Hearn celebrated in his story of " Chita." 

But this April the waters were very blue and 
still. Hen and I gathered a few twigs and grass 
stalks and built a fire for the evening meal. We 
were at it when we heard a soft clatter among 
the shells and two shy, brown-eyed boys came 
through the mangroves. They came to invite us 
to the " Ball," and, having delivered the mes- 
sage, retreated precipitately. 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 97 

We wandered around the shell point to the 
village when the big, full moon was rising. Long 
before we reached the china berry grove we heard 
the tinkle of the guitars. It seemed that all the 
islanders had met at the " new sto'," kept by 
Juan Rojas, a Filipino-Italian, the village head- 
man, and were waiting for us, who were, after a 
fashion, the guests of honor. At least after our 
arrival the folk formed in an impromptu pro- 
cession and down the street-beach we v/ent, the 
guitar players and the fiddler, still tipsily uncer- 
tain of his feet, leading the way. It was a won- 
drous night. The perfume of magnolias and of 
the fig and orange trees was in the soft air. The 
luggars, their red sails furled, hung at anchor 
off the beach, and here and there as we passed 
their laughing crews joined our parade. Men 
and women, girls with magnolia buds in their 
hair, boys in painful celluloid collars, babies 
hanging to mothers' skirts — on we went. 

The ball was in the " old sto '," and five smoky 
lanterns lit the rough floor. A languid young 
fellow was peeling a candle over the boards, and 



98 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

at the far end two kegs of beer were on the coun- 
ter. The fiddler and the guitar players were 
soon ensconced beside them, and without cere- 
mony began a waltz. The floor manager was a 
son of old Rojas, a handsome, dark-faced youth 
who wore a baby-blue shirt, yellow pants with 
stripes of pink and purple — such pants as never 
yet you've seen — and as a badge of authority a 
huge red rose wrapped in tin foil about the stem. 
He informed me that his sweetheart had brought 
it for him from a Bayou Perot camp, and that 
she had tended it all spring. 

The younger folks were whirling over the rude 
floor in no time. The elders and the round-eyed 
Creole and Filipino children sat about the old 
sto' counters, the door was jammed with an en- 
tranced crowd of music lovers, the beer keg had 
its adherents, and the ball was on. Little girls 
of nine with blackberry bloom about their necks 
danced with solemn, swarthy-faced fishers, and 
between numbers wandered hand in hand out to 
the gallery where the live oaks threw their shad- 
ows athwart the shells. Along with the droning 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 99 

of the guitars and violin I heard the splashing 
of the giant gars in the roadstead and the soft 
lap of the waves under the luggars' bows. Every 
harsh, crude outline of the Cheniere was hidden 
in the magic of the moon — a night of quiet 
beauty, of adolescent mirth and faraway charm. 
It was hard to believe one was still in Amer- 
ica. Not even the midnight lunch of sto' bread, 
sausage, shrimp, and beer, with the bemused 
fiddler trying to make us a belated speech of wel- 
come, could take away from the entrancement. 
The younger folk had become shyly acquainted 
with us ; the girls out in the gallery giggled and 
commented in their queer hybrid tongue. Hen 
tried some of his college French on them with 
disastrous results; they and their brown-armed 
young men laughed. Then the old fiddler and 
his assistants fell to the music-making. How 
long the ball went on I do not know. Hen and 
I wandered quietly off down the shell beach at 
two o'clock and crawled in our tent. But afar, 
through the wondrous night, I still heard the 
guitars. 



100 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

We came " down town " late the next day. 
And, much to our surprise, we were told that 
there was another ball on that afternoon and 
night. In fact, as Captain Jack Hammond 
said, there would be one continual ball as long 
as the islanders could detain the fiddler and keep 
him sober enough to play. The unfortunate mu- 
sicians were at it again at three P. M., and with 
two hours' intermission for supper the ball went 
on into another night of dreamy revelry. The 
Tiger boat stayed in port. 

" These people, they don't hear music often," 
said Captain Jack genially, " and long as the 
beer holds out we'll stick around." 

I now understood the Tiger boat's schedule. 
If you stayed by her long enough you would 
get "somewhere." However, Hen and I were 
so pleased with the Cheniere, and, besides, had 
no particular place to go, that we told Captain 
Jack we would remain. And the next morning, 
three " balls " having been crowded into her 
thirty-eight hours' stay in port, the Tiger boat 
got away for somewhere. They carried Sim and 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 101 

the two guitar men on board. Some of the ladies 
went out and perched again on the lumber. But 
some of them decided to stay. Perhaps they 
hoped to catch another orchestra before night- 
fall. 

" We-all could just dance all week," said one 
fair damsel (not so fair, either, now I remem- 
ber), "but dat Tiger boat, he take Sim down 
to Manila. If you-all stay 'round maybe we get 
a man to fiddle off dat Hazel boat when he come 
tnex' week." 

We-all assured the fair-dark one we-all would 
stay. Not that we were so mightily taken with 
sto' balls, but the Cheniere was interesting. We 
lounged with the fishers under the china berry 
trees and at the sto'. We learned that Juan 
Rojas, the Malay head-man, had been on the 
island for forty-five years ; he had deserted from 
a Spanish merchantman in New Orleans and fled 
to the swamps, and this, we found, was the gen- 
eral vague history of the Chino-Malasian peo- 
ples of Barataria. Rojas had married an Italian 
woman and his handsome sons showed the breed 



102 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

had not been in vain. The young men wandered 
Sunday morning along the beach, giving oranges 
to their perfumed sweethearts. In the afternoon 
they got up another ball ! That is, they waltzed 
without music, but to a great clattering of feet 
on the sto' boards. 

At the upper end of the beach was a typical 
colony of the Gulf coast lakes, a seine company 
whose luggars were shrimp catching in the lower 
waters. The six men of the seine company had 
been brought down from New Orleans under the 
promise of making from four to ten dollars a 
day by holding a share in the company. They 
were a forlorn lot, barefooted, ragged, in debt 
to the sto' and unable to get away. We had 
heard many tales of peonage down in the " Free 
State." This was an instance. The men had been 
advanced a few dollars and plenty of whiskey 
and now, no matter how they toiled at the seine, 
they seemed unable to pay for it. No boat would 
take them away. Two who tried to walk north 
through the illimitable marsh were lost, and 
when the boss went after them with a shotgun 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 103 

and a skiff they were glad to get back to the 
Cheniere. 

In the evening we were approached by two 
bronzed young Germans who crept under the 
mangroves to our tent and told their troubles. 
They were educated young Teutons, but spoke 
little English. Otto had been to school eight 
years in Posen; Paul was a tanner of Darm- 
stadt. They had shipped to come to America 
and deserted on the New Orleans levees. Wan- 
dering about the city, they had come on a man 
who told them of the money to be made in the 
Barataria shrimp camps. They wanted to get 
on to Kansas, where Paul's sister lived, but had 
only the vaguest idea where Kansas was. So 
they came down on a bayou boat to Clark's and 
entered the seine crew. 

Each man had a share, the Captain a share, 
the boat a share, the seine a share, and the Cap- 
tain's wife a share for doing the cooking. All 
expenses were shared proportionally, but when 
it came to profits the fishers were at the Cap- 
tain's mercy, for he alone took the catch to New 



104. THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Orleans each week, and, as Otto put it, " Mostly 
it's two dollars and forty cents in debt to him we 
are. Someway our accounts run all the wrong 
way, and we owe the boss eighty dollars, he says. 
And we no shoes, no money; and no boat will 
take us off the island if the boss says no. Ach^ 
is dis a free country, dis America we come to? " 

The work was hard. The seine company was 
out at four in the morning, the men wading to 
their necks to draw the shrimp seines. Break- 
fast came at ten o'clock, although the usual 
coffee had been served on rising. Bean stew with 
chunks of pork fat, bread, and coffee was the 
breakfast. Otto said that dinner was the same, 
except that the beans were white instead of red! 
The crew complained that, though every man 
paid for it, the fare at the boss's camp was far 
better than the crew's. And a favored man or 
two ate at the boss's table — there was always a 
favored lieutenant who helped outvote the seine 
haulers. 

" Here's Irish John, he never eats with us. 
And dey had ham and butter and cheese on the 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 105 

Captain's table, too. And last week the Cap- 
tain's wife made a cake and all the island women 
came to eat it — and we pay for dat cake!" 
Paul's hopeless wrath was almost comical. *' We 
pay for clothes and beds and oil and repairs to 
dat seine, and last week we send up a hundred 
hands of fish and sixty baskets of shrimp. It 
ought to be worth a hundred dollars, but the 
boss he come back and say: ' Boys, we lose forty 
dollars on dat catch! ' " 

The two German lads went on with their griev- 
ances. We made them sit at our campfire and 
have supper. " Every time dat Tiger boat come 
to the Cheniere we have a ball," went on the 
castaway, " dance and have some beer ! Dat's 
to keep the men from getting ugly, but we never 
get out of debt." 

(Since our sojourn there, the Federal Gov- 
ernment, let me add, has interfered in the Bara- 
taria peonage and has sent one of the ** Big 
Chino " bosses and proprietor of a shrimp camp 
to the penitentiary. It is now well broken up.) 

Paul and Otto spoke with contempt of their 



106 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

fellow-workmen. In all matters of company di- 
vision the men were so ignorant that computa- 
tions were made by counting beans. *' So many 
beans, so many dollars," added Paul. "Achy 
and dose people look down on us!" 

I think that hurt them worst of all. The 
Chino-Italian, Malay-Cajun polyglot fishermen 
looked down on these two sturdy, clean-blooded 
lads of the North! I asked them why they did 
not appeal to their consul in New Orleans by 
letter, and Otto shrugged with a smile. They 
were deserters! And they had come to be 
Americans, but free men. 

We condoled as best we might — and gave 
them some of our provisions. Otto begged us 
not to appear too friendly to them when in the 
village. So we met the boys the next day, when 
all the younger men were kicking a rude foot- 
ball down the beach, the weather being too 
squally for the fishers to go out. Otto was the 
gayest of them all — he raced and yelled and out- 
kicked them in sheer excess of youth. Despite 
their lot they were the merriest, carefree adven- 



THE OLD STO' BALLS 107 

turers I ever met. Paul came up to me and 
whispered: *' Anodder ball to-night 1 And 
more beans — red ones dis time!" 

When we went down to their camp among 
the alligator pears and scraggly palms later, 
Otto was making the marooned men roar by 
mimicking the Captain's wife. He wore a sprig 
of china-berry bloom in his hat and took it off 
to hold out to us, while Paul held aloft a card- 
board smeared with red beans: "Help the 
Poor!" 

The island girls came — five of them — to our 
camp and invited us to the ball. They had got 
a fiddler from John-the-Fool Island. And an- 
other night of dancing. The next day they 
began again at ten in the morning. *' Dat music 
he won't stay long," explained the fair one. Hen 
and I attended — and also a sixth ball the fol- 
lowing night. The entire population was laid 
out after that. 

The last ball was at a residence, and the 
guests assisted at moving out the furniture to 
make room for the fete. The next day we heard 



108 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the host lamenting that no one was around to 
help move it back. So it stayed outside a week, 
and the family ate in the shade of the china berry 
tree and looked at their dismantled domicile. I 
asked one of them if I could not assist in moving 
the stuff in. 

"Oh, sho', Man!" said he. "Let dat furni- 
ture stay out. Dat Coqiiille boat, she come 
along nex' Saturday, and mebbe we catch some 
more music fo' a ball." 

Happy island! Since we left there Clark 
Cheniere has been battered and riven by hurri- 
cane, its oaks twisted ; and its houses lean on their 
foundations along the white shell beach. But 
I doubt not that the simple, hardy lake folk are 
still watching to *' catch more music." 



CHAPTER VI 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 



YOUNG ROJAS limped down to the 
beach the next day and confided to me, 
" Dis spohtin' life, it's too much. But if 
I was in N'Awlyins I'd be a spoht. I'd like to 
travel round and spend fo' or five dollehs a day 
jes' like a millionaire!" 

Madame Rojas had, in her room behind the 
Store, a tiny altar and the pictures of the Sta- 
tions of the Cross about the walls. Now and 
then a priest called at the Cheniere, she ex- 
plained, and they had it " fixed up " for him. 

The only other evidence of the higher life was 
the school. It was closed. The two pupils had 
gone to New Orleans for Easter! The master 
wandered disconsolately about. He was a quer- 

109 



no THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

ulous and broken-down fiddler, not at all pop- 
ular because he refused to fiddle for the balls. 
He told me that the heads of families were sup- 
posed to pay a dollar a month for the school, 
but after the first few months nobody paid, so 
the school always closed sooner or later. 

" Anyhow," he added, " why do they need to 
read and write ? They are the happiest and most 
carefree people on the earth, I do believe. When 
I first landed here I used to scold 'em. But no- 
body cared. Just listen to those children play- 
ing on the beach. Their parents won't pay and 
I can't make 'em pay. And will you tell me 
what tongue they are talking? It isn't French — 
it isn't English — it isn't Spanish, nor Filipino. 
Whatis it?" 

We left that cadaverous pedagogue bewail- 
ing. The islanders looked on him as somewhat 
" cracked," I believe. We got more insight into 
social customs. We had wondered at the many 
Yankee names of the people until it was ex- 
plained. They — the Browns and Smiths — were 
all corruptions from some other tongues. ** Bar- 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 111 

onne," for instance, had become " Brown." We 
were confused also by the island habit of calling 
all women by the first names of their husbands. 
The wife of Francisco Vasquez was not only 
Mrs. Vasquez, but also Mrs. Francisco. And 
they all had nicknames, too, so when we went to 
buy bread, or call on someone, we had no end of 
confusion finding the exact person wanted. 
Clark Cheniere would drive a census-taker 
crazy. 

The next day a sou'easter blew which mauled 
the shell beach until it shook. Hen and I had a 
task holding our tent pegs down. By sunset the 
whole curve of the shore was a rolling carpet of 
pink and blue and white shells lifted up and 
flung musically at our feet and washed back to 
come in on the next surge. The next morning 
the shore line was entirely changed, the shells 
being piled in long reefs far over the green, 
marsh. 

It was still breezy. Hen and I had a hard 
time getting breakfast. There was no fuel ex- 
cept the flimsy weed drift. It kept one of us 



112 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

busy holding the fire down under the irons while 
the other made coffee and boiled the oatmeal. 
Half a dozen times we had to chase that fire 
down the beach, bring back the remnants, and 
start all over again. It enlarged our vocabulary 
immensely. The sou'easter belhed the little tent 
tight as a drum, and the pegs threatened to pull 
from the shells. Finally we dropped it, lit our 
pipes, and wandered up the beach around the 
oak point to see what our friends of the Che- 
niere were doing. 

" Probably making another ball," said Hen. 
" Balls and turtle eggs — they're getting on my 
nerves. But what a morning — wow ! I feel like 
my hair was growing in again. Whoof ! " 

But the festive populace was resting. The 
schoolmaster was sitting on a crab boat gazing 
northward, whence the school should reappear. 
Juan Rojas smoked on his sto' gallery and 
watched his sons paint a boat. The luggars rode 
at their moorings and the fishers slept under the 
china trees. A pirogue man came in from the 
marshes behind the Cheniere with a few teal and 




We (lug throiigl) tlic amv to the swamp. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 113 

dos gris and turtles, and the children gathered 
about. But all day the lazy island dozed in the 
sun and breeze. Hen decided to try his tarpon 
gear at gar fishing, and this becoming noised 
about, the entire population gathered at the pier. 
The islanders smiled — catch a gar on that foolish 
little line and rod? Le noin de Dieu — what 
would these Yankees try next? 

" I'll show 'em," growled Hen grimly, and he 
cast prettily off the pier head and threshed the 
surf. He had a rise or two, and then, while I 
was in the sto', I heard a series of wild yells. I 
discovered Hen fighting his way along the pier 
among the natives. He had hooked something 
all right. Presently a big gar charged out of 
water, then straight seaward. The line swung 
out; the natives gazed. No line would hold an 
alligator gar! Hen watched his reel anxiously. 
Then finally he turned the big fish, played him 
back, stopped a rush or two, and the islanders 
gasped. The gar was tiring — and he hadn't 
broken the "jigger rod"! 

Round about the pier head the big fellow 



114 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

threshed, with Hen holding in and trying to keep 
him seaward. But finally, as he was grinning 
triumphantly at the astonished natives, the gar 
made a last exhausted rush under the pier, 
whipped about a piling, and — well, Hen 
groaned ! 

But I heard another yell. Out from the shore 
charged a swarthy Manilaman. He carried a 
club and, dashing into the surf, he began maul- 
ing Hen's gar over the head. Into the water 
swarmed every boy on the island, and when Hen 
discomfitedly reeled in the remainder of his line 
the islanders were carrying a six-foot gar in 
procession to the beach. It was a woeful finish 
to a gallant fight. Hen was wrathful. *' Con- 
found the muckers ! I'd rather the fish got away 
than have 'em club it to death. They're no 
sportsmen! " 

They were not. Just why a man should want 
to catch a gar was beyond them. " Dat fish no 
good, M'sieu ! He mek no gumbo, no cou'bouil- 
lion — no nuttin' ! " 

" I'm going to fry him ! " growled Hen. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 115 

They scratched their heads. No telling what 
a Yankee would do I 

Paul and Otto came with us and we lugged 
that horny-hided fish to camp. The boys spent 
half a day trying to scale him and whack off 
the tough yellow meat. He was as palatable as 
a paper box. 

The next morning a shy youngster clothed in 
a shirt made of a flour sack came to camp. He 
invited us to go blackberrying. Blackberries! 
Where? I gazed about the watery wilderness. 
The lad dived off in the bush without giving us 
details. Hen concluded he would stay in camp 
and repair his tackle and digestion after that gar 
supper of last night. But I went to the village 
with visions of wandering down some bosky dell 
with a tin pail and a — a girl. You know, if 
you're of the North or East. Sort of a cow- 
pasture romance with blackberry flavor. 

But when I reached Clark's a good-sized gaso- 
line stern-wheeler rocked at the pier, and all the 
adolescent population of the island was waiting 
for me. There were buckets all right, and girls, 



116 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

too — and children and babies and rollicking 
young men, and we chugged away across the 
blue water with chatter and smiles. In a minute 
a charcoal fire was going for coffee on the aft 
deck roof, and they got out loaves of bread. 
Jo Rojas beckoned me into the tiny pilot house. 
He placed the wheel in my hands and pointed 
to a dim blur on the horizon. *' Hoi' her der'," 
he announced and disappeared in the crowded 
freight hold. 

I steered vaguely on, the slap-slap of the 
paddle-wheel and the laughter of the excursion- 
ists coming to my ears. A good-sized sea was 
kicking up off the roadstead and presently the 
spray was flying over the fore decks and into 
the pilot-house windows. She rolled a good bit 
on the course, so I held more southerly, still 
keeping my eyes on " der'," as directed. But 
" der' " seemed a long way off. We pounded 
on half an hour, and I wondered why I wasn't 
relieved or given further sailing directions. I 
could see no one. Apparently they were all 
below in the freight hold, for the chatter was 
more subdued. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 117 

The seas pounded up, and presently I 
brought about so as to fetch the place which 
I now made out as an oak-covered point with 
the marsh behind it. I cleared my eyes of the 
suds and stared down. At times the sandy bot- 
tom heaved up uncomfortably near and I saw a 
shark or two, but no blackberries. 

As I fetched up under the lee the shoals 
spread wider. I grew alarmed and began to 
pound on the rear wall, for the signal cord did 
not get response. And the mauling engine 
probably defeated my efforts. Then, when a 
bar seemed to shut off further progress, I 
brought the tub about and out to sea, dropped 
the wheel, and ran aft along the running-board. 
The hold was battened tight, but I kicked and 
scratched at the side hatch. 

" Hey, you! What's the matter? Where are 
we going? " 

Then I yanked the door open. I stared 
down. Honest, every youth in the lot was hug- 
ging a girl — everyone in the lot! And every 
baby had its face smeared with flies and mo- 
lasses from ear to ear. 



118 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

** Hey, you ! '* I roared. " Where the devil 
do you want this boat to go? " 

And while that syrup-smeared court of Venus 
stared back at me, the boat hit bottom with an 
awful wallop. It all but put me off. A barrel 
of water soused over and onto those Cupids and 
Adonises and Venuses. Jo Rojas floundered 
over them and to the deck. I was back at the 
wheel by that time. Jo grabbed a pole and 
began to swear at the enamored ones who poked 
their heads out. 

" San Sebastino! Push 'er head round I Git 
'er round, you-all ! " 

They heaved and pried while the waves 
bumped us harder on. But finally we were 
bumped clear over the bar into better water and 
Jo threw an anchor. He wiped his brow. 

" By Gar, dat some smash ! Git yo' buckets, 
you-all, and git asho'." 

It was some smash. The babies were yowling 
and rubbing molasses onto their bumped heads, 
and the damsels were scolding. But we got 
ashore with expedition, the skiff taking a load 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 119 

and the rest jumping in and wading. Then, 
with gurgles and shrieks of joy, they fell on the 
blackberries, which grew in a half curve under 
the scrub of oaks, latanier palms, and prickly 
pears. They were big and black and luscious. 
Once in a while some busy picker would yell 
and We would assemble to kill a black moccasin. 
Once a small boy disappeared from sight in the 
thicket and after much trouble was pulled out 
of a deep hole. 

" Yo' be careful of dem hide-ups," warned Jo. 
"Dem or pirates done dig this beach all to 
pieces.'* 

I looked into the hole. It was an excavation. 
There were four of them along the overgrown 
beach. I concluded that they had been dug in 
search of La Fitte's fabled treasure, as had the 
holes in the Salvador beaches on the upper lakes, 
but Jo insisted that the pirates had dug them. 

We had gallons and gallons of berries in no 
time. Also many red bugs. Everyone was rub- 
bing and scratching when we got back to the 
boat. Jo came to me rather embarrassed when 



120 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

we got over the bar. " Will } ou-all steer dis 
boat home? We-all a-goin' to jolly dem girls 
some. We-all clean fo'got you comin' oveh. 
We bring yo' some coffee dis time." 

I agreed. By this time the CJieniere Cupids 
had added a layer of blackberry jam to their 
syrupped countenances and the freight hold 
was not a delectable place. The lovers did not 
seem to mind. I suppose, however, that if one 
is going to be loved one may as well sit in black- 
berry jam as out of it. A fellow could hold 
his girl with one hand and scratch red bugs with 
the other. 

I brought that sticky cargo of Eros home safe 
enough. It was dark when I came to camp with 
a pail of mushy berries. Hen and his dyspepsia 
were sitting by the fire fighting mosquitoes. 

"By Golly," he commented, "if I'd been 
there I'd have wrecked the whole smear! They 
wouldn't have spooned on mef 

There is a man with no poetry in his soul. 
Sto' balls, girls, turtle eggs, love, blackberry 
jam — nothing touched him. It will be a long 




The cypress reflect tlieir beauty from the swamp lakes. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 121 

back-track to the Fountain of Youth for him, 
I'm thinking. But for me — why, I felt appre- 
ciably more hair than I had had in the morning. 
Hen, with his sardonic levity, concluded that 
what I felt was molasses and blackberry smear. 
However, I let it go. There is little use in ar- 
guing on the higher tilings with a man who will 
try to eat an alligator gar. 

We inquired further into local history. In 
the last yellow fever epidemic — 1904 — fifty-five 
of the ninety-two inhabitants of the Cheniere 
had it. It scourged every house in the village, 
but only three had died. A beach character 
called " Red " had a peculiar story to relate of 
one instance he knew. " Der was wan bad 
modder. She had feveh and she let her baby 
suck dat poison all out from her breast. Dat 
baby, he die, but dat modder, she get well. I 
sho' wouldn't be any modder like dat." 

The Hazel boat brought two more men down. 
We talked with them and found they were typi- 
cal " 'bos '* w^ho had beat their way to 'New Or- 
leans by rail and had taken a levee captain's 



122 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

word that wondrous riches were to be made in 
the shrimp fishing. But they stood on the wharf 
that first day and eyed the seine company strug- 
gling with its net out beyond the gentle surf 
with great disfavor. The men were warily 
dodging the great stingrays that had become 
entangled in the seine, and the hungry sharks 
following to seize the dead and escaping fish 
made the water boil around the luggar. One of 
the 'bos had gingerly tried to assist hauling, but 
hastily clambered out, despite the seine cap- 
tain's swearing. 

" I don't cotton to this game a whole lot," he 
remarked. I never did love fish, anyhow.'* 

The boss told me later he would ship the 'bos 
back to the city. They would only spread dis- 
content among his crew if he kept them, grant- 
ing that they might be induced to work. I met 
them lonesomely sitting on the beach at dark, 
slapping mosquitoes. They asked what we were 
doing down in Barataria, and when we said 
we were on a pleasure trip they roared with 
laughter. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 123 

" Pal, you got some new ideas of pleasure ! 
I never see such a layout since I been on the 
road." 

We were at the schoolmaster's the next morn- 
ing, idling a beautiful Sunday over coffee and 
conversation, discussing the mystery of our lost 
canoe, of which no word had come on the Hazel, 
when one of the oddest men I ever saw came in. 
He was a wiry, wrinkled, coffee-colored little 
bundle of mingled animation and shyness, ges- 
ticulating and interrupting as the pedagogue 
translated his nervous speech to us. He was 
Allesjandro, sailing master of a sloop that had 
come in from Cutler's Island. Cutler's Island 
was the home of Baron Von Gaal, the owner of 
the sloop and a person of note. The schoolmas- 
ter enlarged on the Baron and it caught our 
fancy. 

The Baron was an expatriated Austrian gen- 
tleman, who had fought in the Civil War, made 
a fortune in New Orleans in the lottery, lost it, 
and retired to a bit of Eden in lower Barataria. 
Allesjandro was his major-domo, and a more 



124 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

loyal never served. He couldn't say enough 
about the Baron, the garden, the oysters, the 
fishing at Cutler's, and wound up with a pro- 
found bow and an invitation to visit his master's 
domain. 

Hen looked up with the first show of interest 
since he ate the alligator gar. "Some class! 
Us for Cutler's I" 

" But we started for Florida," I argued — 
** and the Fountain " 

" Right-O. But we can't walk. I've given 
up the canoe — the railroad people are hopeless. 
There's a Manilaman up the beach who offered 
to sell a pirogue. Let's buy it and start some- 
where and wind up at the Baron's." 

That seemed uncertain enough to be enticing. 
We had heard a deal about the country across 
the chain of lakes to the west. Clear days a 
dim line of forest showed above the water. 
Allesjandro offered to take us over in the sloop 
if we bought the pirogue. We all went to see it. 
Allesjandro knew the former owner — one Juli- 
ano, also a Manilaman, He vouched that it was 
a bargain at ten dollars. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 125 

We looked it over. It was sadly unlike the 
beautiful sea-going canoe we had ordered from 
Old Town, Maine. Thirteen feet long, twenty- 
eight inches wide, hewed from a single cypress 
log, yet it was a deal more seaworthy than the 
usual trapper's dugouts. It had a decked space 
fore and aft and a bit of coaming to ward off 
the splash. We looked at it, estimated our pile 
of dunnage, and then I tried it out and was 
swamped trying to get about the point to camp. 
Hen ran along the point yelling advice, which 
was good, seeing that he had never been in a 
pirogue in his life. But Allesjandro was full 
of praise. I pounded up through the surf to 
camp. 

Juliano, Allesjandro, and Hen formed a re- 
ception committee and shook my dripping hand. 

" Good old scout ! " congratulated Hen — 
"you only capsized once, didn't you?" 

That was unnecessary. However, Juliano 
and Allesjandro made it up. I was " wan great 
beeg pirogue man." I could go anywhere in 
safety — around the world, or to Mawgan City, 
or anywhere. Old Juliano was touched at the 



126 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

thought of parting with his lake pirogue. It 
was named Bantayan, after his native town in 
^lindanao, and positively he must weep when 
he thought of selling it. Yet he would — for ten 
dollars. But only to distinguished strangers 
like ourselves, 

" Well, I don't think we can lose — for ten 
dollars," said Hen. " Only we'll be taking 
some awful chances with all our duffle in that 
thirteen-foot coffin. But we can't stay ma- 
rooned here all summer." 

So we bought the Bantayan — ^with misgiv- 
ings, I assure you. That was the beginning of 
many episodes. We had much to learn. There 
is much to relate. We never dreamed that this 
little green, red, and yellow painted log of cy- 
press was to be our home for close to four 
months, nor that we should come to love it. I 
shall tell of just one instance of that. I recall 
that over in a Belle River camp Hen and I 
thought of renaming our dugout. Hen said 
Bantayan was barbarous. So we thought and 
thought. Once I had a girl named Ethel. 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 127 

Once Hen had a girl named Sadie. That was 
long ago, when we had more hair. 

So I proposed that we christen the pirogue 
Ethel. 

" No," said Hen, " Sadie." 

I insisted on Ethel. Hen stuck out for Sadie. 
And we wrangled all day and all night and some 
the next day. We were amazed at our chivalry. 
I had never imagined it in a man who would 
turn up his nose at turtle eggs as Hen did. But, 
as I said, we quarreled over the christening;, 
with a little pot of black paint there all ready 
to slap on, and a bottle of beer to break over 
her bow, first carefully removing the beer from 
the bottle. 

Finally we hit a happy compromise. The 
Bant ay an was a boat with her stern just like 
her bow, low, sharp, rakish. A stranger could 
not have told one from the other, for she would 
paddle either way. So I named the bow end, 
where T paddled, " Ethel," and Hen named the 
stern "Sadie." Ethel was painted on her port 
bow and Sadie on her starboard quarter. She 



128 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

was Ethel to all the folks on the left bank, and 
Sadie to all those on the right. 

That was fine, I recall, for a time, until once 
we got into a walloping big whirl that took us 
around and around so that we couldn't tell 
whether it was Ethel going upstream or Sadie 
coming down. That rapid gave us such a scare 
that Hen proposed we recant and go back to 
our original name. 

*' Say," he began when we had got ashore and 
in camp, " I never was so much gone on that 
girl, anyhow. I just stuck out for Sadie be- 
cause you said Ethel. Darn their pelts, let's 
cut 'em all and be virtuous and refined." 

" Old top," I rejoined, "I'm right with you. 
One girl is bad enough, but two! How could 
that boat get through without being wrecked? 
She's a fine little scow, and Bantayan's her 
name!" 

We went right down there to the bank with 
brotherly accord and scraped those two girls 
off, for'ard and aft, with our pancake flipper. 
So Bemtayan she was once more, and we 




13 



O 

cS 



&£ 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 129 

breathed freer, and sailed gayer, and slept 
sounder, and our hair grew quicker, taller, 
bushier — it was fine spring weather for hair. 

But to go back. Allesjandro said the seas 
were too big to tackle in our craft. When we 
had loaded our stuff on the sloop and got away 
from the roadstead, leaving all the islanders 
staring amazedly at the celerity with which 
Yankees did things when they made up their 
minds, the lake was rolling with whitecaps. 
The little pirogue floundered and filled at the 
towline and Hen and I looked down at it with 
some misgivings. 

" Brilliant idea number twenty-two," mur- 
mured Hen. "Did you propose this or did I? " 

Allesjandro added the comforting after- 
thought that the Cheiiiere people all said we 
would certainly be drowned if we tried to cross 
to Bayou des Amoureaux with such a load in 
our pirogue. However, with the public eye on 
us now we wouldn't have backed out if we could. 

The doughty little Manilaman towed our 
pirogue across the lake and up under an oak- 



130 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

grown point of the far shore. The short, 
choppy seas of the great, shallow lake were 
mean to handle in getting ashore with our 
luggage. It took two loads to make it, 
and then Allesjandro waved adieu from 
his sloop and left us. We sat down on our 
stuff piled on the beach, looked at that gay 
red and green and yellow log which was to 
transport us through the coast wilderness and 
mentally asked: "What next?" 

The lake shores were entirely impassable. 
Everywhere from the narrow shell reef the bot- 
tomless salt swamp hemmed us in. On the other 
side the seas pounded, the sou'easter eating 
large holes in the shell bank and rushing 
through in threatening fashion. 

" I'm not sure that this looks good," said Hen. 
*' Which way do you think is the best out of this 
hole? Did you find out just where the bayou 
ran out of the swamp? " 

" No. I thought you did that." 

" Blessed if I did ! Man, we've got to get 
over this habit of merely going somewhere with- 
out any idea of how we can set out of it." 



BLACKBERRY ROMANCE 131 

" If this sea keeps rising," I retorted, " I know 
blamed well how we'll get out of it. Well shin 
up one of these dinky oaks and hang on for a 
week — and there isn't a camp or a human being 
on this side the lake, they said ; or a foot of safe 
land till we hit Bayou La Fourche." 

" It's fine weather," murmured Hen — " for 
ducks." 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SNAKES OF BAYOU l'oURSE 

WE made a most beautiful camp in the 
oak grove, and when the moon drew 
up above the dancing waves and 
struck that curve of shells, and we had supped 
on coffee and blackberry smash spread on our 
hot biscuits, and had had a smoke, lying on our 
blankets, we felt fit for any game. We were 
hungry after that hard day's work, and still 
more tired, and slept like tramps. The gale 
blew all the next day and we could see nothing 
except a luggar hauling up from the great bay 
into the lakes for safety behind the points. We 
had planned to start at dawn along the west 
shore, but it was another day before we made it. 
There was a deal of trouble packing the 
pirogue. We had two duffles, the tent roll, a 

132 



SNAKES OF BAYOU UOURSE 133 

general plunder sack, the kitchen kit and re- 
flector baker, camera, guns, and tackle, besides 
our blanket rolls and bars, and to batten all this 
down below the coaming of the thirteen-foot 
dugout took a lot of compromising. We threw 
away some stuff, but kept the sail poles and can- 
vas that we had bought with the pirogue. Just 
what use we would make of them was uncertain, 
for when she was loaded and we paddled out of 
the cove, there were not two inches of freeboard, 
and we had to sit high on our luggage to work 
her along. I was bow stroke and Hen was 
steering. It was gingerish picking for a few 
miles, as the seas still flung up along the marsh 
shore, but by ten o'clock we turned into a broad 
bayou which we concluded was Des Amoureaux 
and was supposed to take us to La Fourche 
woods. 

We drew on into a brilliant prairie covered 
with yellow and white and purple flowers, out 
of this into a swampy little lake, into another 
bayou, another lake, and on another slow-mov- 
ing stream. The banks of the whole country 



134 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

were barely above water, and it was five o'clock 
when we neared the blue wall of woods. At 
sunset we were paddling through the big cy- 
press with here and there a cane brake, which 
made it hard to follow the channel. The chan- 
nel, in fact, began to shoal off into mere mud 
flats of lilies and scrub palmettoes, and we 
looked anxiously for a camping spot. 

It had been a fine day's paddling and the 
Bantai/an had stood up nobly. A canvas canoe 
would have been ripped to pieces by the needle- 
like spikes of the cypress through which we 
shoved the pirogue without danger. But the 
prospect of spending the night in the swamp 
was not pleasing. The gloom of the forest 
brought the nightfall quickly. But presently a 
light showed under the heavy festoons of the 
moss. 

Hen gave an exultant yell: " Land-Hol 
And I smell coffee I " 

We drew up beside a palmetto shack. A 
Cajun woman came around the mud- walled 
chimney with a frightened glance at us. But 



SNAKES OF BAYOU L'OUBSE 135 

we reassured her and asked the way. Her hus- 
band was a hunter of wild cattle and was off 
in the lower swamps. She said it was three 
miles to Bayou La Fourche, where there were 
plantations, but we could not get there by water. 
Des Amoureaux lost itself in the cypress here- 
about. We made a hasty camp, hanging our 
bars to a broken-down wagon tongue, drank 
fresh milk with our cold biscuit, and rolled in. 
Crepelle, the cowboy, was home for breakfast, 
and a most excellent breakfast he asked us to — 
braised duck, rice and sour cream, and bread. 
His wife was a Portuguese, he told us. We had 
added another to our polyglot collection of the 
nations of Barataria! 

As Crepelle was sure we could not get 
through the swamp, Hen decided to go out with 
him in search of some way of portaging our 
dugout to La Fourche. His father, a genial 
old alligator hunter, came to camp later. He 
thought we might follow a stream that led to 
Bayou L'Ourse and get to open water some 
miles below. The Gulf was rising, he said, and 



136 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

on a good tide the big woods might be traversed. 
On his advice we waited over a day, anxiously 
measuring the black water as it crept up to the 
rude little wharf of poles in front of the palm 
hut. 

The Crepelles told us many stories of alli- 
gator hunting and of the raids against the wild 
cattle of the swamps. They had never been able 
to reach many of them until this spring, with its 
unusually high tides, had let the water-cowboys 
into their haunts. This was the highest land we 
had seen since leaving the Mississippi, and when 
a wagon and ox team jogged in over the trail 
along the ridge it was really a novelty after 
wandering in the wet forests and sunken lake 
shores of Barataria. 

The elder Crepelle had a never-ceasing child's 
wonder at our stories of the world outside, and 
at our patented camp paraphernalia. He was 
full of ''Mo7i Dieus" and ''Eli-Hos" and 
" Ho-ees" and comical but pathetic apologies 
for the rudeness of their living. But never did 
we meet more genuine hospitality. In fact, the 



SNAKES OF BAYOU UOURSE 137 

finest memory of all our sojourns is the unfail- 
ing courtesy and shy but eager welcome with 
which the swamp Cajuns met us everywhere. 

The next morning's tide had risen little. Hen 
set off on the ox trail with the younger man to 
reach the plantation country and bargain for 
some means of portage to Bayou La Fourche. 
I slept in my blankets an hour longer and then, 
while waiting for Crepelle's breakfast, conclud- 
ed to take the pirogue and see if I could not 
really shove her into the forest and explore the 
waterway. It was a fool idea. I paddled on 
nicely with the lightened dugout for a mile, en- 
tranced by the morning beauty of the wet 
woods, the singing birds and flowers. When 
the cypress thinned a bit I discovered that 
Bayou L'Ourse led into a glade of sawgrass 
and wild hyacinth, and I thought I saw a ridge 
of higher land beyond. I congratulated my- 
self. When Hen came back with his nigger 
cart I would have the Bantayan all loaded and 
ready to start for a paddle through the swamp. 

So I worked on through the grass and cane. 



138 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

The sun was up and burning hotly down on the 
muddy margins of the bayou, which was now 
hardly more than a shallow ditch. And snakes I 
I began to see them lying within paddle reach, 
lazy and lethargic, big black moccasins, cotton- 
mouths, and now and then a reddish copper- 
head. As I dug on through the mud I mauled 
them over the head, killing eight in as many 
yards. But the farther I went, the shoaler grew 
the water and the hotter the sun. The gnats 
began to dance over the evil-smelling mud and 
presently I felt rather sick. I glanced ahead 
and then back. Snakes everywhere. I stood 
up and counted twenty-nine. 

Then I realized that it was the indescribable 
odor from this snake den that was sickening me ; 
that, and the sun and the three hours' labor 
without breakfast. I concluded to turn about, 
for there was no navigable water ahead. But 
that gave me no end of difficulty. I couldn't 
drive the canoe around in the mud, and I could 
not step out, for the mire was bottomless and 
the three and six-foot moccasins were every- 



SNAKES OF BAYOU L'OURSE 139 

where. Sick and hot, I worked at it and at the 
end of an hour had not back-tracked twenty 
yards, when I heard a ''Ho-ee!" back in the 
cypress. 

Old Man Crepelle was standing in his runnin' 
pirogue staring at me. " Man, wha' yo' goin'? " 

"I don't know. Some snakes, aren't they?" 

" Snakes ! Worse hole in dis swamp f o' 
snakes. Dey got me cowed ! Yo' betteh git out 
a-deh! Dose big ones larrup right into yo' pi- 
rogue if dey gits mad ! " 

I larruped another one over the head. They 
were too somnolent to attack one, I imagined, 
but Crepelle was badly frightened. He would 
not budge from the shade of the cypress, and 
I had to work back alone, with the old swamper 
scolding me every yard. When I got to the 
timber I was about done up. Crepelle let out 
another cry of dismay when he discovered I had 
piled three of the biggest snakes into my pi- 
rogue. 

"Mon Bieu! Skin 'em! Dat's bad luck, 
M'sieu! Don't bring dem snakes to my camp! " 



140 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

And when I approached he sat hastily down 
and paddled on ahead. His light shell went 
over flats that our heavy canoe would not take, 
and when I reached his camp his voice came 
excitedly as he told Hen : " Yo' partner, he 
out deh bringin' in a load o' snakes! Dey sho* 
got me cowed! " 

I was too sick to skin my snakes when I got 
back. Anyway, Hen had a nigger cart waiting 
and we lifted the Bantayan into it, piled the 
camp stuff on, and set out. Mid-afternoon we 
came out of La Fourche woods into the narrow 
strip of cultivable land fronting the bayou. It 
was green with young sugar cane. Down the 
long rows a line of darkies, men and women and 
children, hoed the black earth, while the mount- 
ed overseer rode behind and jacked up the lag- 
gards. He was very courteous, but mystified 
at us appearing from the swamp, refused any 
compensation for the mule cart, and told the 
hands to see us off safely on Bayou La Fourche. 
We paddled on in a stiff headwind until dark, 
and made camp on the ancient levee. We could 



SNAKES OF BAYOU L'OURSE 141 

see nothing but the greensward, with a cow 
grazing here and there, and it was a pleasing 
surprise to chmb the levee and look down on a 
smiling country of small farms stretching to the 
swamp woods three miles away on either side. 

The people were all Creoles, truck-raisers and 
storekeepers, w^hile along the slow-moving bayou 
came red-sailed luggars, the Italian crews pol- 
ing them against the failing breeze. It was an 
interesting country. We made Lockport the 
next morning, dined at the hotel, got directions 
as to how to reach Bayou Terrebonne, and set 
off down a weedy canal southward. But it came 
on to rain before the first mile, and when we 
saw a large, dirty tent on the bank by a lumber 
pile we went ashore. There were two men in- 
side, sitting by a smoky stove, and at first glance 
we knew thej^ were " Yankees." 

They were from Kalamazoo, and they were 
trying to reclaim three thousand acres of wet 
land along Field Lake. As it blew and rained 
harder, we accepted their invitation to make 
camp with them. They helped us put up our 



142 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

little silk tent, and we all dined on fried trout, 
tea, and macaroni. Our hosts were wet but 
hopeful. They were waiting for the cattle which 
they were going to run on their holdings to kill 
the " piene grass " for a year or two, until they 
began cultivation. Several other Northerners 
had settled about, and the company was work- 
ing to drain the small lakes to make available 
the land beyond *' the forty-arpent line," the 
historic demarkation beyond which the Cajun 
farmers would not venture. 

However, Yankee capital was doing wonders 
on the black, rich swamp soil. The gentlemen 
took us in a launch the next day to show us how 
their pumping plant worked to drain the low- 
lands. It would remove the rainfall at the rate 
of two million gallons an hour from the main 
ditch. Into this the field laterals led the water, 
and we were told that the pump would drain off 
a four-inch rain in twenty-four hours and leave 
the prairie dry enough to plow the next day. 
Anyhow, the contrast of this black humus with 
adjoining areas of wild cane, infested with alli- 
gators and snakes, was refreshing. 



SNAKES OF BAYOU L'OURSE 143 

The newcomers had great hopes of pepper- 
mint as a crop. Potatoes, corn, onions, toma- 
toes — all were flourishing fabulously on the 
Raceland prairies. But the April rainfall was 
something big. It fell upon Hen and me that 
night in our tent, the wind howled and snatched 
at the silk, and by midnight we were lying in a 
pool of water. But we refused to be routed out, 
although dawn came on us soaked and sleepy. 
We breakfasted and dried out our camp. But, 
glory be to the duffles and piffles! Not a drop 
had gone through the paraffin bags to our grub. 

We paddled on the next day — a most beau- 
tiful one — through Field and Long lakes, then 
up Bayou Terrebonne, through another minia- 
ture farming country of the Creoles, and came 
to the little French town of Houma at night. 
Next day was Easter, and we idled in the plaza 
and watched the churchgoing folk. It was all 
clean and sweet and sunny after the swamps 
and snakes of La Fourche. Round about were 
sugar plantations, and motor cars rolled out the 
white shell roads to the great houses. We liked 
Houma immensely. Little boys came to our 



144 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

camp, all quiet, respectful little chaps, who an- 
swered " Yes, sir," and " No, sir," and volun- 
teered to carry water. They had never seen a 
tent and thought we must have a " show." We 
had got quite used to that by now. All down 
Terrebonne the darky women came to the bank 
to ask if we were selling anything, and neither 
white nor colored could make out that two men 
would paddle that dugout around just for 
" pleasure." 

We had a call from the sheriff of the parish 
next day. He just dropped in " to see what 
we were about," he explained. The big planta- 
tion owners had no liking for strange white men 
to be about their negroes. The sheriff said that 
employment agents were forever trying to lure 
hands off the plantation to work in the lumber 
camps and towns, and itinerant peddlers swin- 
dled the negroes, getting good money that, of 
course, by all that w^as just and holy, the plan- 
tation stores ought to get. But when the Terre- 
bonne planters could once understand that we 
desired no further business with the hands than 



SNAKES OF BAYOU UOURSE 145 

to photograph them they were very hospitable. 

Our Easter dinner was a big mulligan of 
steak and vegetables, rice and blackberry jam, 
for the blackberries literally enrobed Terrebonne 
on both banks for miles. And the storekeeper 
where we made a few purchases sent us a fine 
banana cake, and another man sent us oysters. 
We couldn't help liking Houma. 

Houma was a great oyster-packing point. 
The streets and roads were all white shelled; 
and one oyster house had a pile of these in its 
yard estimated to be worth two thousand dol- 
lars. The oysters came up the bayous from 
Grand Caillou, Tambalier, and all the south 
coast reefs, the red-shirted luggarmen lending 
an ever-picturesque color to the green-banked 
bayou. We regretted to leave Houma. Not 
that we knew yet where we were going. Not a 
word from that canoe. Hen yawned when I 
mentioned it. He gaped wider when I remind- 
ed him of his digestion and the Fountain of 
Ponce de Leon. 

" Oh, yes — that old party ! He made a mis- 



146 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

take in going to Florida. He should have come 
to Terrebonne and had the natives feed him 
banana cake." 

" If we're going to Florida in the Bantayan** 
I answered, " or Yucatan, or wherever it is, we 
ought to turn around. It's about twenty-four 
thousand five hundred miles in the direction we 
are paddling, and my hands are a bit blistered." 

" Suppose it is twenty-four thousand? We're 
in no hurry. Let's wander on to the Atcha- 
falaya country and see that oak under which 
Evangeline sat and waited for her Gabriel.'* 

" Girls? " I said. " Thought you came down 
here to forget girls and table d'hotes and all that 
sort of thing? " 

" Yes," he murmured, flicking a fly off his 
ear. " But I want to see that oak. I want to 
know how Evangeline could sit under a Louisi- 
ana oak without the red bugs getting her. And 
if they had, there wouldn't have been any poem. 
No one can sigh for love with the red bugs on 
*em. You can't mix girls and red bugs and then 
expect any poetry out of the combination — ^no, 
sir!" 



SNAKES OF BAYOU L'OUBSE 147 

So we went on lazily. Hen's automatic rifle 
was getting rusted and his scientific fishing kit 
was unopened. He didn't seem to care. He had 
no interest in his stomach any more. Or his hair. 
He was getting almighty lazy. The way we 
slept nights in that silk tent was a caution. It 
was the hardest sort of work to be under way 
in the Bantayan before nine in the morning. 
And at eleven o'clock Hen invariably proposed 
we go ashore and eat something. But we man- 
aged to paddle on into Bayou Black, past some 
very fine plantations, into a region of tiny farms 
between the bayou and the blue wall of the 
swamp forest which was always in sight beyond. 
One morning we awoke to discover three dark- 
eyed children gazing at us. 

"Bon jour!'* they hailed us smilingly, and 
then disappeared to come back with hot rolls and 
some dry kindling, having watched our efforts 
to start breakfast with wet sticks. 

Then they sat about us, smiling silently. We 
had bought a new and small coffee " dripper " 
some time back and now the Bodin children pro- 
ceeded to show Hen how to make real " Cajun " 



148 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

coifee. Hen sat patiently through breakfast 
while our small hosts pressed the black pow- 
dered coffee in the " drip " and slowly, drop by 
drop, added the water. 

" Now, when do I get my coffee? " demanded 
Hen, time and again. 

" Oh, M'sieu, afterwards! " Robert assured 
him. And from that time on, coffee via the slow 
drip methods of the Cajun pot was " afterwards 
coffee " with us — we never could get it concocted 
in time for breakfast. 

Three colored lumbermen also stopped in to 
find amusement over our breakfast efforts. The 
Bodin children explained that they were not in 
school because the " Yankee " schoolma'am had 
resigned. She could not find table board to suit 
her, demanding canned peas and baker's bread 
and wanting her room calcimined. The bayou 
people couldn't understand this, so she quit and 
there was no school. 

The three swampers " sorteh lazed round all 
day," as they put it, watching us dry out our 
stuff from the night's rain. When we lit our 
pipes and strolled over to talk to them one said : 



SNAKES ON BAYOU UOUBSE 149 

" Do Ah onde'stand you-all a-paddlin' that li'l 
boat round fo' pleasuah?" 

" Yes." 

"Pleasuah?" 

"Yes. Pleasure.'^ 

He looked at us and then broke into soft, in- 
>vard regurgitations of laughter. " Pleasuah I 
Some folks is got some quee' ideas o' pleasuah I 
Ah'd rather done go to N'Awlyins and see' a 
pictu' show." 

!N'one of the people here had ever seen a 
camper or heard of anybody traveling through 
the bayous on " pleasure." The Bodin children 
had never seen a tent; they examined and dis- 
cussed ours with curiosity. 

But never such kindly, lively, and wideawake 
youngsters. Alcide and Antoinette said they 
would bring us some milk, but at supper time 
came back mournfully abashed to relate that 
there was no milk. The cows had refused to 
come out of the deep swamp back of the fields, 
and when the cows wouldn't come home no one 
could make them. We all went blackberrying 
the next day in the swamp edge, and the dis- 



150 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

graced cows booed from the cypress woods, but 
still refused to come out. 

It was on Bayou Black, in our Arcadian leis- 
ure there, that Hen had his celebrated case of 
the Nigger from Grand Caillou. I have told of 
our hypodermic syringe and stuff for snake bite. 
Hen was ever aggrieved at me because I refused 
to get snake-bitten and let him practice on me. 
The Nigger from Grand Caillou was hanging 
around camp one day and heard our never-end- 
ing discussion of the hypo cure for snake bite. 
Now, that nigger needed fo' bits. He needed f o' 
bits the worst waj^. So, happy thought — Hen 
offered him fo' bits if he would get snake bit 
and let Hen practice. The nigger said he 'lowed 
he would. Fo' bits is a lot of money. 

So the Nigger from Grand Caillou went off 
in the swamp and came back snake-bit. He 
showed the hole. It was a round sort of hole in 
the nigger, right on his forearm, and it had some 
blood. "Excellent!" said Hen, and proceeded 
to pump the nigger full of dope. The nigger's 
eyes stuck out, but he said he didn't mind if he 



SNAKES ON BAYOU L'OUTtSE 151 

got the fo' bits. Well, after the operation Hen 
gave the nigger his fo' bits. Then we sat around 
waiting for something to happen to the nigger. 
Nothing happened. We gave the nigger his 
supper and Hen told him to report in the morn- 
ing. He did so — before breakfast. He reported 
for dinner, he reported for supper. He hung 
around all the time we camped at Bodin's with 
Hen anxiously inspecting the hole and examin- 
ing the nigger. 

Hen was hurt because the nigger showed no 
symptoms of any sort. He neither would die 
nor would he get any better. He just hung 
around and had a whale of an appetite. I grew 
suspicious about that snake. Hen had asked him 
if it was a moccasin or a copperhead, and the 
nigger assured him that it was one of the worst 
snakes for niggers ever seen in these parts. The 
nigger stayed to supper and breakfast again and 
borrowed Hen's pants to go to a " ball " over 
near Mawgan City. Hen laid a strict injunc- 
tion on him to report next day. The nigger did 
— before breakfast. He was a woebegone nig- 



152 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

ger now. He had become infamous overnight. 
The story had spread of how the Yankee doctor 
had used him for experimental purposes. 

*' Boss, I done come back hyah to ax yo' to 
tak dat stuff outen mah system," he said. " All 
dem fool niggehs at de ball dey wouldn't have 
nuffin to do wid me. Dey said Ah was changin* 
coloh lak Ah was purple now. Gin don' seem 
to make me feel drunk now, an' mah girl she 
won't have nuffin to do wid me. I hatter sit 
round dat ball all alone jes lak a poisoned 
pup!" 

Hen couldn't take the stuff outen his system. 
He was aggrieved that nothing outwardly hap- 
pened to the nigger. As for myself, I was cyn- 
ically minded as to the snake. But when we 
paddled away from Bayou Black the Nigger 
from Grand Caillou still sat on the bank, gazing 
sorrowfully after us. He was the poisoned pup. 
We had totally ruined his social position. 




Thankful to camp on the roots of a sunken cypress. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ITHROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 

WE paddled on from this bit of Arcady 
with regret. Alcide, 'Toinnette, and 
Robert came down from the planta- 
tion-house to bid us adieu — and bring us an 
enormous bullfrog which the boys had captured. 
We had told them of our desire to eat of the 
fried and famous bullfrogs of the bayou region. 
He was a whopper — big as a chicken, and when 
we cooked him just as one would a broiler he 
was great and enough for a family. 

I took a farewell sail with the big red lateen 
which we had brought along with the Bantayan 
and never used, as we dared not risk it with all 
our fancy camera stuff on board. But this 
morning I was skimming up Bayou Black while 
Hen perched on a stump to snapshot the pirogue 

153 



154 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

as she flew by. It was a squally day, and just 
as I came past the plantation-house, leaning the 
ticklish craft over so that Hen would have a 
picture with " some action," as he demanded, a 
puff of wind hit me off the bank. Over we went, 
green pirogue, red sail — all upside down, amid 
shrieks of laughter from our delighted Creole 
friends. As I was then traveling with but one 
pair of trousers, Robert dashed to the house and 
made me a loan, for the day was cool. I felt 
it by the time I was fished out. 

That day's trip took us quite out of the farm 
country. The bayou grew more wild and beau- 
tiful, the banks lower, and the oaks and pecans 
gave way to the gray cypress jungle and the 
latanier palms. We met no one on the last 
miles except a few negro tie-cutters standing up 
" row-pushing " their square-end skiffs, chant- 
ing lugubriously with the stroke. The men pole 
the ties out of the deep swamp along narrow 
water aisles, fifty to a hundred in a string, wet 
to the skin day-long, hardly seeing the sun until 
they have towed the ties to the bayou side. 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 155 

There they are loaded on barges and sent on 
to " Mawgan City." 

We pushed on through Bayou Chien with a 
strong tide bearing us seaward between the 
semi-tropic banks. The tangle of palmettoes, 
grape-vines, willows, and cypress, together with 
the masses of wild hyacinths floating along the 
shores, made a landing dijfficult anywhere. Then 
we would come to a bit of real land where the 
oaks and greensward made the country look like 
a great park, and then plunge on in the forest. 
The bayou gradually widened and once again 
came plantations, the colored hands in the fields 
and the white quarters showing over the young 
cane. We reached Morgan City at nightfall 
and made a pleasant camp under the oaks. 
Bayou Chien here flowed into the mighty Atcha- 
falaya, which, in turn, thirty miles below, pours 
into the Gulf of Mexico. We looked out on 
that swift, yellow flood, bearing the drift and 
debris of the bankful Mississippi with some 
doubts — we would have to cross it and go some 
miles up to reach the Teche country. 



156 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

My remembrance of ^lorgan City is that a 
pest of Argentine ants invaded camp, that we 
dickered for two chickens for fifteen cents each, 
and then discovered we had ten cents left, with 
no apparent chance of cashing a check in this 
town of strangers. Hen's solicitude for those 
chickens was touching. He crawled out of bed 
all hours of the night to see if they were still 
roosting on the rail fence by the tent where 
they had been tied. 

He mumbled about colored citizens and preda- 
tory 'possums in his sleep, and was out with a 
"Hooray!" at daybreak when one of the 
youngsters crowed. Sunday, and wash-day. 
Sour-dough cakes and coffee for breakfast; but 
for dinner — oh, you Mawgan City chickens I 
One apiece. We went without lunch in order 
to be equal to them. 

Pushboats and johnboats went past us all 
morning, filled with colored folk on the way to 
church. Some landed near us to make their way 
through the leafy woods to town. The women 
had on bright headkerchiefs, and the men were 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 157 

very solemn in black Sunday garb. When I 
came back from swimming I discovered Hen, 
as usual, had got into a vast argument with the 
natives. 

One old grizzled-chop darky was asking, 
"Ain't you-all tellin' fawtchunes like dem old 
Egypt folkses used to do?" 

" Get out! " said Hen. " What makes every- 
body think that ? " 

The venerable brother shook his head. " Only 
one eve' fitten to tell fawtchunes wor Moses, 
hisself." 

Hen was inclined to dispute the Mosaic 
legend, and at once he was in for it. The old 
darky laid down his cane and book, wiped his 
brow, and proceeded to expound. They had it 
hot and heavy, and our guest wound up: 

" Man, you try done tell me Moses got his 
learnin' f'um dem Egyptologers? Well, wha' 
dem Egyptologers git it f'um?'* 

" From the Phoenicians." 

"F'um dem Phoenicians? Well, wha' dem 
Phoenicians git it f'um?" 



158 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

" From tradition." 

" Well, wha' dem Traditioners git it f'um? " 

Hen paused, stumped at last. And his tri- 
umphant interlocutor picked up his cane with 
a flourish: "Yas-seh! Wha' dem Tradition- 
ers git it f'um? " 

And off he went, leaving Hen clear flabber- 
gasted, sure enough. 

After the demise of the chickens we spent a 
pleasant evening speculating on the sorts of 
bugs crawling over us now and then. Hen 
would lay down one of our nickels and I would 
lay down the other and the pool would go to 
the man guessing right on the next sort of bug 
down his neck — redbug, ant, mosquito, or some 
of the many amateur bugs which we couldn't 
classify. 

We got away a fine sunny morning up the 
Atchafalaya, much pleased that through the 
courtesy of the postmaster of Morgan City 
Hen had his check cashed. We made an extra 
careful pack of the duffle bags, cameras, and 
j^uns for the venture across the big river. Many 
were the comments of the idlers along Morgan 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 159 

City's wharves when the Bantayan poked her 
nose cautiously off in the swift flood. 

" It's all right to be bold, but not too bold, 
seh ! " one skipper assured us. " Ah'd as soon 
start up riveh in a pocket-handkerchief as yore 
boat!" 

We had a fight to climb up under the arches 
of the railroad bridge and then, sitting each 
a-straddle of a heap of luggage, for the Ban- 
tayan w^as so weighted with her pack that the 
thwarts were invisible and she showed barely 
two inches' freeboard along her sides, we dug 
the paddles into the Atchafalaya and passed on. 
After a mile of hard, slow work, dodging the 
perils of floating logs and lily masses, we en- 
countered a swell sweeping from a sea-going 
tug that gave us a bad scare. Hen was steering 
and he brought the tiny pirogue around in time 
to meet the rushing wave so that we split it and 
the succeeding ones fairly and shipped little 
water. I ceased paddling entirely and balanced 
my paddle in the air, so ticklishly did the thir- 
teen-footer roll for a minute or two. 

" Curtains," murmured Hen, looking at the 



160 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

far shores. But the Bantayan stood the seas 
splendidly. We got out of the mad rush of 
water past the point and into the easy reaches 
of Bayou Teche by mid-afternoon, landed, 
bailed the water out, lunched on a can of beans, 
and paddled on into this most beautiful country 
of all Louisiana. But in the days following we 
tired of civilization and wanted to get back to 
our wilderness. The Teche, the historic home 
of the early Creole sugar-growing aristocracy, 
was one succession of great estates, noble-pil- 
lared houses, sugar-stacks, and darky gangs 
afield, with her and there a lumber mill in one 
of the prosperous little towns we passed. 

The bayou became more winding and pictur- 
esque above Franklin. There was little navi- 
gation, and the stream seemed a show river run- 
ning through a show-country, parked, scrubbed, 
ribboned with green, and set with stately oaks 
and hedges. It narrowed, too, so that one got 
the most intimate and personal glimpses, sylvan 
towns, distant spires, and white roadways; while 
now and then we rounded a clump to find our- 




Now and then we dragged the pirogue from pool to pool. 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP ICl 

selves almost in the tub, as it were, of a group 
of black, clean-turbaned mammies doing the 
family wash. On almost every plantation we 
were stopped by a tiny foot-bridge across the 
placid bayou, and some ancient of years would 
hobble down from the " sto' " to open it, collect 
a nickel, and hobble back to his gallery. 

Opposite Charenton we encamped upon the 
estate of Monsieur Vigoreaux, threw our blan- 
kets about the great roots of a fantastic oak 
jutting over the water, and slept, tired from a 
fourteen hours' continuous paddling. The next 
day disclosed the same tranquil beauty of land 
and baj^ous, although we did not see so many 
imposing plantations and stately houses of the 
old regime as below Charenton and Irish Bend. 
There were more rice fields than cane and more 
lumber mills, and the traffic on the stream was 
much less as it narrowed. New Iberia was a 
well-kept and pretty spot under its Southern 
oak, and now, for the first time in almost two 
months, w^e decided to sleep under a roof and 
stored our camp outfit on the deck of a gasoline 



102 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

boat at the bridge dock. And I cannot quite 
analyze the intolerable feeling that came over 
me lying in that stuffy hotel-room. 

I was at once unhappy and restless; indeed, 
beautiful as the Teche trip was, Hen and I 
were already getting grouched wherever civiliz- 
ation touched us. We wanted our wilderness. 
The Fountain lay not here nor there among 
these smiling towns and ordered country-sides. 
We wandered about New Iberia, the subject of 
some comment, overhearing one lady in a store 
remark: "Those two men are sailing around 
the world in a pirogue ! " 

And a very earnest small boy came up to me 
on the street as I sauntered along and asked: 
" Suh, are you a Cubian?" 

I looked the part, perhaps. I hadn't shaved 
since we dropped into the Barataria woods, and 
only now had had the beard trimmed into a 
nifty Van Dyke that made Hen envious. And 
that, with a Mexican hat and the sunburn, made 
up the part. We were badly off for clothes 
as soon as we struck a town, for neither had a 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 163 

coat, and the exigencies of pirogue traveling 
had stripped our wardrobe to the barest essen- 
tials. All along we had been solving the ques- 
tion of making that thirteen-foot dugout sea- 
worthy b}'- chucking overboard every last ounce 
that could be spared. And while we idled and 
discussed the next move we got some decisive 
news. Among the letters forwarded w^as one 
from the steamship company that had shipped 
our famous sea-going canoe from ^N'ew York. 
It was at the bottom of the Atlantic! The 
canoe, not the company. It seemed that the 
carrier-steamer had collided with another some- 
where off Hatteras and gone to the bottom with 
its entire cargo. The agent regretted it exceed- 
ingly ! 

"Now, what do you think of that?" yelled 
Hen. " Florida and the Fountain ! Here we 
are in Louisiana headed exactly off in the wrong 
direction, and our canoe at the bottom of the 
sea!" 

We stared at one another. " Florida be 
hanged ! " I said. " This is better forty ways 



164 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

for Sunday. Florida is smeared from St. Au- 
gustine to Key West with tourists and hotel 
grubbers. Down here we don't run into one. 
Florida is screamed at you from every railroad 
folder and advertising agency. The Teche 
country is innocent of either. More beautiful — 
more romantic — untouched, unspoiled — Arca- 
dian in its " 

" Who's the girl? " said Hen. " That rangy 
looker in the P. O. window?" 

"Go to! There ain't no girl. It's the cli- 
mate. And the spring. And the two hundred 
miles' paddling we've done. And the — well, 
the grub, and the appetite, and chaps like Capau, 
the dreamy-eyed old swamper, whose stories 
we've been listening to every night down on the 
bayou bank. I feel fine and fit. Let's drift off 
into the Grand Lake country where Capau says 
the natives are who hunt with blowguns — actu- 
ally! In this twentieth-century America! And 
see the Evangeline oak " 

But there I rubbed Hen the wrong way. He 
was touchy about Evangeline. Every town we 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 165 

had struck from Houma to the upper Teche had 
claimed Evangeline. That maid must have 
spent months about the Atchafalaya lakes, get- 
ting all sorts of trees and dells and bends of the 
bayou named after her. Not a Cajun but what 
would grow wide-eyed if you asked of Long- 
fellow's afflicted lady. Once a schoolmaster 
over at Grand Cane had written a play about 
Evangeline and her oak, so Capau told us. He 
saw it with his own eyes, and it had four acts 
and was as large as your hat. The hotel man 
also saw it, and the saloon man at the bridge. 
It was a fine play, but the barkeeper said it 
wasn't as large a play as Capau insisted. He 
said there was no more than a good double hand- 
ful of paper altogether, and he wasn't certain 
whether that was enough for a good play. 

Then there was an argument over the bar in 
the midst of which a sad-eyed bum who had 
sidled in to mooch us for a beer suddenly amazed 
me by taking part and quoting Polonius's speech 
of admonition to players in general — " Speak 
the speech, I pray you," etc. 



166 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

He was a panhandler who had come in over 
the Espee and admitted he had " done time " 
in eastern Texas, but he new more of literature 
than Hen and I and the barkeeper and Capau, 
the swamper, rolled in one. But we parted from 
our courteous friends of the Teche the next 
morning and started to find a way across to the 
lake country north of here. We paddled all day 
and until ten that night, made a shift of a camp 
in the dark, and started a tiny fire for coffee. 
And that night, as we prepared for bed, a most 
startling thing happened. I saw the blaze of a 
light in the dark, the report of a rifle came, and 
over our heads in the treetops a bullet sang. 

We stared for a moment and then retreated 
from the circle of the firelight, I seizing my re- 
volver on the way. Then we waited many min- 
utes. Nothing moved in the still country mid- 
night. We went back to our blankets later, 
cautiouslj^ discussing the matter. I awoke the 
next morning to stare up into the gray-green 
mist of a moss-hung oak with beyond it a beau- 
tiful dawn. I heard a stir in the grass back of 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 1G7 

my head and turned to discover a tall colored 
man in a faded, striped convict suit looking 
down interestedly. He carried a hoe and a can 
of seeds, and when he saw I was awake he re- 
moved his hat and said: 

" 'Xcuse me, boss, but I gotter plant dem 
wattermillions hyah!" 

We sat up to look as interestedly at him. 
Across the bayou we now saw the white sheds 
and fences of a State convict farm. The same 
thought shot across our minds. 

" Look here," said Hen, " did some of your 
fellows shoot at us last night?" 

Convict Evariste Moore, aged 54, doing 
twenty years for killing another negro in Point 
Coupee, couldn't say exactly. But if any fool 
guard had done so he was ready to apologize 
on behalf of the State. 

Anyhow we were asleep on forbidden ground, 
the wattermillion patch of the State convict 
farm of Louisiana. We got out lazily and built 
our twig fire for coffee and invited Evariste to 
have some. He glanced cautiously about and 



168 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

took the cup, but respectfully stood at attention, 
hat off, while he conversed. He told us all about 
the camp, said he was treated very well, and 
when Hen took his picture a gush of tears filled 
the black man's eyes. " If you-all gem'men 
send that picture back to mah wife in ole Point 
Coupee, she be the happies' 'oman in dis hull 
gove'ment ! " 

We assured him we would. We went over to 
see the commandant later. He told us undoubt- 
edly one of the guards had fired at our camp, 
as they were ordered to do at any fire started 
on the farm grounds. We did not stop to de- 
mand justice, but went on down the bayou to 
camp the next night on Albania plantation, 
where the young manager. Monsieur Allain, 
was more hospitable. The old Albania planta- 
tion-house was built in 1830 and still stood in 
its original grove of oaks and pecans. 

We discussed with Mr. Allain the best way 
to get over in the great chain of lakes and little- 
known bayous stretching northwest to the Mis- 
sissippi from the Teche. He tried to dissuade 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 109 

us, saying the swamps there were flooded from 
the overflowed Atchafalaya and Mississippi, but 
finaUy loaned us the inevitable nigger and mule 
cart to portage our boat across the fields. Out 
of the beautiful level cane ground, fine and fresh 
as a new-worked garden, the road grew rougher 
and wetter, the mule-cart bumped and jogged 
over logs and into pools where the moccasins 
crawled from the wheels. Finally, at sunset, the 
darky declined to go any farther into the big 
woods. He said it was a bad swamp from now 
on, and there were no houses and probably no 
land to be found above water. 

Now Hen and I should have camped right 
then and there rather than go into the Grand 
Swamp at nightfall. But we felt fit and fine, 
having slept most of the afternoon, so after buy- 
ing a live cliicken from the last nigger shanty on 
the road we paddled off into the flooded forest. 
For a mile or so we found a tolerable straight 
lane, and then the blazed trees marked the trail. 
But presently, as the sunset and the gloom gath- 
ered in the mighty cypress, we had to turn from 



170 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

this blazed trail to paddle around a fallen tree 
and this involved us in a patch of brush under 
which we pulled and dragged our pirogue, con- 
suming so much time that when we had got into 
open water once more we were surprised to find 
how dark it had become and that off to the 
northwest there were mutters of a coming storm. 
Then we were unpleasantly surprised to find 
that the blazed trail we were following was no 
longer ascertainable. 

We paddled on through the gloomy shades, 
looking for a lessening of the trees which would 
mark the shore of Grand Lake. We had been 
directed to the camp of a lonely hunter who 
would receive us on Allain*s word. But we had 
to make another long detour, working about 
floating logs and under a jungle of creepers and 
latanier palms. The big lake had overflown its 
banks and there was land nowhere. 

" There's a sizable chance," murmured Hen, 
"of roosting in a tree to-night." 

It looked more like it every yard. And the 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 171 

storm grew rapidly, so rapidly that presently, 
save for the flashes of lightning and the shim- 
mer of a young moon all but obscured, we saw 
nothing. And then the great gray trees with 
their flj'ing moss streamers were not reassuring. 
As the wind soared stronger we dwelt upon the 
possibility of a limb plunging down and sink- 
ing us all yards deep in the swamp mud. We 
got under a veritable hornets' nest of thorn- 
yines where we had to use the axe to free the 
boat, and by that time the squall hit the big 
woods with a. demoniacal fury. How it did roar 
and blow! 

We brought up under the lee of a fallen log 
and hung there tightly while the forest heaved 
and shrieked about us. A spatter of rain came 
with it, but we faced it head down, resolved not 
to take chances on trying to find shelter under 
our rubber cloth in this melee. Fortunately 
there was little rain. The gale buffeted us for 
half an hour, with the most terrifying electric 
display I ever saw, and then as suddenly died 



172 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

down. Only a dying blast came now and then, 
and behind the flying scud the stars were shin- 
ing as peacefully as they had an hour ago. Our 
hair and faces were filled with bits of moss and 
rotten bark torn from the trees, and when we 
tried to push out, the broken brush impeded the 
pirogue. But at last, after a few more hundred 
yards of work, we saw a thinning in the forest, 
struggled toward it, and from there caught a 
glimpse of open water. The shimmer of the 
waves in the setting moon showed us the way. 
We paddled into the big lake at last, tired from 
a four hours' battle with the swamp. 

But nowhere had we found an inch of land. 
The majestic cypress arose sheer from the 
depths, and their spiked knees caused us to 
paddle warily away from the points. Luckily 
the sea was fast running down and when we 
rounded the first point we were in calm water. 
But not a house or a habitation, nor even a foot- 
hold! As we worked on, skirting the forest 
shore, I felt a movement at my feet, and the 
bedrabbled rooster we had purchased uprose and 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 173 

crowed, shaking the water from his tail. He 
had been tied to the main sheet, the stick and 
canvas lying furled under me. 

" Good old scout! " yelled Hen, "that sounds 
very cheerful ! " Then he pointed ; " Brought 
us luck — there's a light ! " 

We saw a gleam far to the east. I laid a 

course for it — and it disappeared. Then I 

struck a bearing from the far point of land and 

one dim star ahead and steered on. Twice again 

we saw the light, and each time it went out or 

was hidden. We anxiously scanned the dark 

line of forest. The last bend of shore brought 

us full in the run of the waves from the lake, 
and the wind was again rising. The Bantayan 

wallowed down badly with her handicap of rain- 
water under the pack, and we were unable to 
bail. Then we ran into a field of our old en- 
emies, the water hyacinths, tossing on the waves, 
and these sheered us far off our course. 

It was an hour before we drew near the point 
where the light had been. The shore was dark 
as Erebus. We stopped and began shouting. 



174 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Then we paddled a mile along the woods, shout- 
ing and hallooing. The prospect of encounter- 
ing another blow on Grand Lake with a shore- 
line so filled with tossing logs and deadly cy- 
press spur^ that one could not approach it was 
not assuring. On we paddled in the dark, anx- 
iously trying to distinguish the tossing lily 
masses from the drifting logs. The wreckage 
was smashing against the bases of the sub- 
merged cypress trees, and one stretch of shore 
consisting of willows gleamed a ghastly white 
against the forest because of the trees being com- 
pletely skinned by the bombardment. The whole 
shore of the lake was filled with this wreckage 
of the upper rivers poured by the Mississippi 
into the Atchafalaya. If we had known then as 
much as we did later we never would have tack- 
led it. The entire country north of us, forest, 
lake, and bayou, was buried under the rushing 
torrents from the Father of Waters. 

But Hen and I went blundering on in tha? 
thirteen-foot hollow log looking for land. We 
whooped again for that mysterious light. It was 



THROUGH THE BEEP SWAMP 175 

dirty going, and presently the wash of water 
inside the pirogue was alarming. She was fill- 
ing from the smash of the seas, for we had to 
keep her broadside to them to skirt the shore. 
To head out was madness and to attempt run- 
ning in over the flooded shore among the drift- 
age was equally dangerous. 

And just when we began to think the voyage 
of the Bantayan had ended right there, and we 
would weather the night in a tree, a light flashed 
out startlingly close. Then we made out a high 
platform camp. A man was peering across the 
whitecaps at us. And the way we headed the 
Bantayan about and came splashing in under 
that platform was illuminating. We were 
scared. The last seas filled and rolled the pi- 
rogue like a log broadside on against the pilings, 
so that we grasped desperately at the foot of the 
ladder. 

The swampers above were yelling down at us 
in French. Finally, with their help we got the 
'Bantayan out of the wash and driftage and on 
a submerged float behind the camp. Then we 



176 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

crawled up wet and chilled. A gaunt, bearded 
man was staring at us. Then a younger one ad- 
dressed us in fair English. We w^ere in a Grand 
Lake tie-cutters' camp and a dozen Creoles and 
Spaniards from the deep swamp had taken ref- 
uge on M'sieu Landry's platform until the storm 
was over. When we told them we had made our 
way in the dark across the swamp from the Teche 
they were frankly incredulous. 

*^*' Tres hien, M'sieu, but how yo* know trail? " 

"Didn't know any trail I We just bumped 
her through." 

The young man shook his head. " Yo' wan 
lucky man! By Gar, I couldn't find mah way 
in dis stawm and de Crevasse!" 

Hen whispered to me as he wi-ung the water 
out of his socks. 

*'Say, we've made a reputation! Now don't 
spoil it by any fool exhibitions with your paddle 
to-morrow! Throw out your chest and tell 'em 
that this was just a little joy ride! " 

" Hi, if only Allesjandro could see us now! 
If we ever get back to Clark Cheniere we'll give 
a ball in honor of Ponce de'Leon and Columbus 




Wu shot s(juirrfls nlong thu juiiglo-grown shores of 
Grand F.akc. 



THROUGH THE DEEP SWAMP 177 

and Balboa and our other fellow-navigators." 
Hen sat down to his coffee and gave a fervent 

account of our travels and the Cajuns listened 

respectfully. 

Then young Landry murmured : " Yo' sho* 

wan beeg pirogue man! But why yo' travel 

round with dat chicken tied by hees leg to dat 

string in dat boat ? " 

Outside we heard that fool rooster give a 

cheerful crow, for it was now close to dawn. 

Clearly we were under suspicion. 



CHAPTER IX 

JSOME KOUGH PADDLING 

WHEN I awoke under the mosquito bar 
M'sleu Felix Landry was moving 
softly about. He greeted us with 
gentle courtesy, and we discovered that the other 
half-dozen men had breakfasted and gone quietly 
away " out front " in the pirogues. They had 
all talked in undertones so as not to disturb the 
sleeping guests. Can you imagine half a dozen 
Irish or American woodsmen tiptoeing about a 
room out of consideration for two strangers? I 
can't. That was the Creole of it. 

M'sieu Landry was animated enough now. 
His son, Florion, had caught a fine gaspergou, 
and we had a famous cou'houillion. Also small, 
snappy biscuits, the best ever. Felix had been 
cook on a Mississippi packet, but love for the 

178 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 179 

woods drove him back to them. In the four days 
the Norther kept us penned up on the platform 
camp he and I fraternized over that most mel- 
lowing of outdoor bonds — camp grub. Florion 
and I shot black squirrels in the swamps, and 
Hen hooked a big catfish and a 'gou or two, and 
w^e had couhouillions, jambelayas, poisson pi- 
quant eSj rouXj, all made famously under the hand 
of M'sieu Felix. Florion caught some crawfish 
and we had a great bisque. M'sieu was delighted 
to have a pupil in Cajun cookery. 

Four days we ate and smoked and argued in 
the swamp patois interlarded with our pidgin- 
English. Six other men came in, driven from 
the lakes by the storm. We were on Lake False 
Point, we found. Grand Lake was just visible 
through a stormy pass to the east. To the west 
the whitecaps beat on unbroken forest through 
which the fierce currents whirled from the flooded 
Atchafalaya. It was great luck finding Lan- 
dry's camp — otherwise Hen and I would have 
been in for it. The Cajuns all declared we could 
not ascend the chain of lakes in this ridiculous 



180 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

pirogue. There was no land above water, no 
shores, nor would there be any good weather this 
month. Everything was drowned by the angry 
rivers pouring their floods down from the melted 
snows of all America; it would be one continual 
torrent through the Atchafalaya lakes until after 
the May headrise. 

" Well," retorted Hen amicably, " we can't 
go back, so we've got to go on. I like this 
blamed country — where there's any of it above 
water — and I like the grub. Florida is an old 
ladies' home compared to this shindig." 

Our gentle old Creole friend kept his lamp 
burning in the window all night after our advent, 
for, as he explained: " Ah, M'sieu! How I not 
know some odder lost man lak yo' not be out in 
dat stawm? " 

He also asked solicitously if we knew the sig- 
nals for the lost. Two quick shots and then a 
single one, repeated? We told him we did, and 
also the rule of the woods that a needy swamper 
may break into any untenanted camp he sees 
and help himself to grub, provided always he 
does no wanton damage in the camp. 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 181 

Florion and I had another squirrel hunt with 
his two " runnin ' pirogues." They were twelve- 
foot craft, hewn to such a thin nicety on the sides 
that they were hardly more than canvas — low, 
needle-like canoes in which we skimmed over 
places where the heavier boats could not run. 

I did the rummy trick of shooting over my 
right gunwale from the pirogue and promptly 
took a ducking. The slender boat shot upside 
down from the recoil so quickly that I came up 
gasping, to meet Florion's gentle laughter. 

" Only two ways yo' can shoot from dat boat I 
Wan right head and odder way over yo' left — 
and yo' mus' watch her at that ! " 

We had some great squirrel hunts. Also took 
a shot at a great white-headed eagle which I 
drove from its nest. Then we went back to 
camp, dried our clothes, and lolled about while 
Felix got dinner. Always, of course, came the 
preliminary coffee. 

Florion played his mouth-organ and told joy- 
ously of his " girl " over in St Mary's parish. 
He was a handsome, brown-throated boy, gentle 
and merry and skilled to the woods and water; 



182 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

with a laughing curiosity as to the great world 
whence we came. Two more of the swampers 
returned that afternoon and another feast was on 
— game and rice and sweet cakes. All this time 
our hapless chicken, dubbed " Lord Teche," had 
been roosting out on the platform, tied to a 
string, fed every day to repletion, but lonesome. 
We thought of hospitably decapitating him, and 
then our hearts smote us. He had got to be a 
friend — and besides there wouldn't be enough of 
that little chicken for six lusty men! 

So Lord Teche crowed valiantly every morn- 
ing and scratched the door for M'sieu Landry to 
come fetch his breakfast. The Creoles were too 
polite to intimate that chicken was good. Any- 
how we had game and fish in abundance. 

At night the Creoles played '' vingfun " and 
another game that they called — to us — " Beeg 
dog." 

"Ah, dat beeg dog!" said Fehx, "I catch 
dat ole lady ace, but dat beeg dog — heem never 
I catch wan lettle time." 

"Beeg dog" was the jack of spades, we 
learned. 



SOME BOUGH PADDLING 183 

And now, ye neurasthenics, ye thin o* hair 
and worn of eye with the tread-mill of the cities, 
I want to tell you something. A glimpse of the 
Fountain! At least what our wilderness had 
brought to Hen and me. We were tired that 
night, from pulling in the currents on a fishing 
trip to the big cypress points, so we turned in 
earlier than our hosts, and I declare to you that, 
lying in my bunk, my head within two feet of 
the table where four men were wrangling over 
the card game, and wrangling with laughter long 
after midnight, I fell asleep and never woke up 
till the sun poked his morning face into camp! 
Can you beat it? No, you can't! You've got 
to wander over the face of the waters and under 
the beat of the sun and be swept by the Gulf 
breezes, and struck by the slant of the rain for 
three months to be able to drop down in swamp- 
er's shack and know the dreamless slumber of the 
heart at peace. 

They were at their " beeg dog " another night 
when I was writing up my notebook at the same 
table. I became aware, my glance bent on the 
paper, that their languorous murmur had ceased. 



184. THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

and looked up to find the eyes of all five men 
fixed on me intently. A big, lanky swamper 
had said something to call their attention to me. 
Old Felix now laughed apologetically. 

" My friend he say if he could write so lak dat 
he sho' neve' would be in dees swamps." 

The big swamper laid down his cards and 
laughed too, wistfully. 

" I sho' neve' would. If I had wan educa- 
tion lak dat I sho' go to N'Awlyins and be a clerk 
in a sto'." 

" No, you wouldn't,'* I answered. " You just 
think you would. You'd try it and be stiff and 
cramped and ashamed to be bossed by some shop- 
keeper, and some day you'd think of the free 
lake, and the sun, and the wind off the big salt 
water up from the Gulf, and then you'd throw 
up your job and come back to the woods." 

But he laughed, a sort of pathos in his brown 
eyes, rubbing his big hands, as he watched my 
notebook and Hen's camera. " Mebbe. But I 
would lak tryin' to be a clerk in a sto'." 

The next day the norther seemed to have 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 185 

blown itself out. We could see the light green 
of the tupelo gums against the gray of the cy- 
press across Lake False Point at least, even if 
the yellow tides ran fast and higher day by day. 
Landry counseled us to wait, but we had been 
guests of these gentle folk long enough. So 
the next morning, wondrously beautiful, clear 
and calm at dawn, we got away, the Bantayan 
packed tidily, and Lord Teche in his den under 
the coaming. The woodsmen warned us to stick 
close to the west shore of the lakes; they were 
doubtful as to where we would find a stopping- 
place at night. Certainly no land was above 
water in seventy miles, and there were few camps 
along the Atchafalaya lakes now occupied. 

We paddled away much hghtened by leaving 
our sail and spar behind ; also part of our kitchen 
irons and some of our grub. But we had a 
week's provisions, and here, in the fresh lakes, 
had no need of carrying water, as we did in the 
Barataria region. The Creoles shouted a cheery 
farewell as we drove around Point Camille. 
Never did we meet a better reception, but among 



186 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

a people who met us everywhere with kindness 
it is hard to choose. 

We rounded Point Metier and Point Coquille 
that morning only to run into a freshing north- 
wester that drove a dirty sea in our faces. But 
we had to keep on hugging the shore so that if 
the Bantayan filled and plunged to the bottom 
under her load we could at least swim to the 
trees — a dismal refuge, however, for miles of 
flooded swamp would confront a man in any di- 
rection. In fact there was hardly a chance of 
getting out alive, if once shipwrecked. 

We had trouble at all the points, for the yel- 
low floods boiled so fiercely among the stumps 
and trees that we dared not seek refuge there. At 
noon we cautiously ran the pirogue's nose up to 
a tossing fragment of a log raft, pulled her up, 
and ate a hasty lunch. Lord Teche was set out 
on the logs to stretch his legs. But the wind was 
getting high and we put in in a few minutes, for 
it would have been a desperate shore to be weath- 
ered on. The trees and saplings in the cove were 
literally torn to splinters by the pounding they 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 187 

had got from the driftage during the recent gale. 
So we had to head the tiny Bantayan straight out 
in the whitecaps. 

It was bad. We paddled on, seeing no one, 
nor a boat nor camp all the day — nothing but the 
stormj'- lake on one hand and the impenetrable 
jungle on the other. The lake is well named 
Fausse (False) Point. Time and again we were 
encouraged to work for hours to a bold promon- 
tory, thinking to find it land above water and 
offering a haven, to discover nothing but the 
crash of the drift among the great butts of the 
cypress — and another great curve of forest be- 
yond. 

Grand Pass, fifteen miles to the east, was filled 
now with lowering scud, and a spatter of rain 
came at times out of the northwest. 

" Bad weather due," growled Hen; " I guess 
we should have taken Landry's word and stayed 
off the lakes. Catch those waves a bit deeper and 
hold her head on. It's mean steering back here." 

It was mean forward. The pirogue split the 
combers, but a lot of them shook themselves over 



188 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

me, and only her tight little decked space, not so 
much bigger than a bushel-basket, kept from 
filling. As it was Lord Teche, between my 
knees, was soused now and then, and I began to 
estimate the amount of water down under the 
luggage. We could not rest a moment to bail 
it. We began to scan the long, wave-beaten line 
of forest more anxiously as the sky dulled. The 
gale blew steadier and harder every hour. 

I glanced back once to see Hen spitting the 
top of a whitecap from his teeth — it had curled 
us neatly on the starboard and only the rubber 
cloth saved us from swamping. As it was, it 
took lively work to bring the dugout around be- 
fore the next wave caught us. We held off the 
shore until dusk. Now and then we heard the 
crash of a falling limb in the flooded woods. The 
vast masses of Spanish moss waving from the 
cypress were indescribably gloomy and depress- 
ing, and the thought of seeking shelter in that 
fearsome wood was more so. We had not seen 
an inch of land above water all day. 

The last round of a point laid our course so 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 189 

that the swells had us full broadside and we 
stopped to scan seriously the line of dirty sea. 

" As sure as shooting fish in a bucket, we'll 
be slammed into the cypress spikes, if we try to 
keep close in," said Hen. " Let's make a tree 
roost of it for the night." 

" And lose our canoe and outfit? " I retorted. 
*' No, we'll have to beat it on and look for a 
chance to run in some cove or bayou." 

Darkness was lowering when we were crawl- 
ing slowly, with minute inspection of the mass 
of drift grinding among the trees, along a mile- 
wide cove. It offered no harbor — was, in fact, 
worse than the sheer lake. But at the far side 
the grim wall of forest was a bit broken and we 
saw the shine of the latanier palms in a sort of 
glade. When we reached it all we saw was 
water stretching in, and between us and its com- 
parative calm a hundred yards of solid wreck- 
age with the yellow waves leaping all along its 
outer edge. It was hopeless. 

We had worked on past this mass and I was 
digging off on the weather side to draw the 



190 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

dugout's nose up into the waves, when I heard 
Hen shout. 

" I saw a camp ! " 

I shot a hasty glance at the wood shore. A 
great eddy had hurled us on and I could see 
nothing. But Hen kept yelling that he saw a 
camp behind the fringe of storm-torn maples. 

" If you think so, let's head her in," I yelled. 
" But God help us if there ain't! All that stuff 
above is working down on us, and the spikes are 
thicker in there than hair on a dog." 

We watched our chance to bring the pirogue 
about and run with the seas before one slapped 
us broadside. Hen yelled again. The first 
comber on the turn had gone all over him — 
rolled clear forward, in fact, and struck my 
back. 

"Dig!" he cried, and we shot in. "Dig!" 
and we swept past a mass of battering logs. 
Then a swift draw of the paddles and the canoe 
lifted past a serried row of cypress spikes half 
buried in the foam. And then another and an- 
other. We hurried the Bantayan this way and 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 191 

that like a scared cat, as the seas chased into the 
woods after us. And then we saw a mass of 
our old friends, the water hyacinths, and shot 
her behind them, where only the heave of the 
swells stirred us, and dropped our paddles, 
sweating and soaked. 

Sure enough, right ahead of us was a log hut 
perched on its platform. We could get no 
nearer, so we slid overboard in water above our 
waists and dragged the pirogue on a few yards 
into the floating tangle — logs, vines, lilies, grass, 
and dirty foam. But we could not work her 
within a hundred feet of the shack. I left Hen 
anchored to a tree and struggled to the place, 
swimming, wading, climbing. The door was 
padlocked, but I could see in the chinks. It was 
occupied, or had been of late. I went back and 
we brought our duffle sacks to the platform, 
along with Lord Teche on his hobble. The 
canoe we dragged up on a fallen but solid tree 
and left it tied. 

We rattled the padlock chain and called. But 
it was plain no one was about. Where the mud 



192 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

had fallen from the chinks we saw moss-filled 
bunks, a clay furnace, open fireplace, and a 
table. 

" I reckon, as we're castaways, we might as 
well invoke the law of the woods and make our- 
selves comfortable," I said. " Hand up that 
old axe!" 

We chopped the staple out of the door and 
threw it open. 

It was a darkies' swamp camp, the crudest 
imaginable, but it offered a roof. And we 
needed one. In fifteen minutes a fury of rain 
and wind broke over us that set the woods to 
howling. Crash after crash told of where the 
trees were falling in the soaked under-soil. But 
we had a fire going in no time and the blaze 
made even the day and the log camp seem home- 
like after that lake. There was no chimney. 
The smoke made its way out through a raised 
slab of the roof. We were too weary to look 
about or speculate as to the owners. We cooked 
a hasty supper, hung out soaked clothes about 
the fire, and tumbled on our blankets spread on 




On liavou ''I'ccIk' 



SOME ROUGH PADDLING 193 

the moss bunks, fervently hoping there were no 
other occupants. We had barred the door so 
that, if the niggers came back in the night — 
which was hardly possible, as it did not seem 
a human being could live in the swamp in that 
hurricane — they would have to awaken us and 
give time for explanations. At that I slept 
with my revolver within pulling reach. The 
swamp blacks are given a bad name by some. 
But we dropped into a slumber that all Africa 
could not have broken. 



CHAPTER X 

THE WATEKHOUSE BOYS 

WE awoke to another cool, bright, but 
treacherous spring morning. The sun 
shone through the chinks of the wet 
hut and the mocking birds sang in the swamp 
maples, while the wide-stretching lake was blue 
and dimpling beyond the line of battered drift- 
age hemming us in. Our canoe had come 
through safely on its perch on the big log. We 
passed a leisurely morning rubbing our stiff 
bones and drying clothes. And here, in this 
lonely camp, there came an end to the adven- 
tures of Lord Teche. 

" I do hate to kill that chicken," murmured 
Hen, " but this morning I feel like fried chicken. 
Anyhow, we'd lose him if we tried to carry him 

much farther." 

194 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 195 

So a few crocodile tears, and then fried 
chicken. We had knocked about for eight days 
with that bayou rooster, and this was the first 
camp where we had time for sad but fitting rites. 
Besides, we were afraid the owners of the shack 
would return, and you all know it is not well to 
bring chicken and a colored brother into too im- 
mediate juxtaposition. 

After breakfast we waded to the pirogue, 
turned it over a log to drain, then waded back 
and carried our stuff out to the fringe of drift 
logs. It looked like another puffy day on the 
lake and we were anxious to get off. Ahead of 
us somewhere was Lake Dotreve, which the 
swampers had assured us was a bad bit of water 
in the Red and Atchafalaya headrises of May. 
We got off at noon, leaving a note of thanks 
on the table for our unknown hosts. 

" But the chances are," said Hen, " the nig- 
gers can't read and will think someone has placed 
a hoodoo on their camp. We'll leave a more 
intelligible message." 

So we made a present of some canned corn 



196 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

and stuff to the absentees, selecting, of course, 
some things we didn't want ourselves, which is 
the soul of all true philanthropy. Also we 
cooked a batch of sour dough and left half of 
it — the burned ones, that is, for our reflector 
baker just naturally would burn the lower row 
of biscuits. 

It was three o'clock on the first of May when 
we paddled about the last great spur of sub- 
merged cypress butts into Lake Dotreve. Its 
blue shore line of forest ten miles away was ut- 
terly lonely and uninhabited as far as we could 
see. Already a bad sea was kicking up with 
the freshing northwester. After an hour of 
skirting the south shore, where we had to catch 
the whitecaps broadside on, we made out what 
appeared to be a house away to the west. Hen 
turned the Bantayan out straight for it, and the 
course took us a mile and a half off shore. We 
figured to cross the bend before the lake rough- 
ened too much for the pirogue. But presently 
a wave laced us fore and aft, and I heard the 
rush of the water under our luggage. It didn't 
look good, and I freely said so. 



THE WATEBHOUSE BOYS 197 

While Hen held her on in the seas, I bailed 
cautiously — as much as a man can bail a loaded 
craft when he cannot in the least turn in his 
seat, nor shift his weight right or left, without 
capsizing her instantly. I merely could spread 
my knees and snatch a bit of water with a tin 
cup. 

But another wave undid all my work — and 
then another. The Bantayan was wallowing 
heavily. The nasty seas would not allow her to 
get her head up, as a canoe might have done. 
We held a hasty council. 

" It'll be no easy trick to turn and run for 
the shore, but it's the best bet," Hen muttered. 
*' Watch for the sixth swell — it's always the big- 
gest. Then dig sharp about to port — now!'* 

We ripped the blades in right after the run 
of the water, and the pirogue got her tail into 
the seas before they could slap her. But that 
retreat back to the swamp shore was the most 
ticklish bit of pirogue running I have ever had. 
The waves raced past us level with the tiny 
coaming, so brimming level that when I saw 
them under my elbows I simply stopped breath- 



198 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

ing and waited. The Bantayan would drop to 
the bottom like a plummet if once she filled, and 
our chance of swimming that mile of yellow, 
angry flood sweeping the lake was slim, to say 
nothing of the miles of impassable swamp be- 
tween us and the back levees of the Teche plan- 
tations. 

I never was happier in my life than when the 
water-logged Bantayan crept slowly up to the 
line of wave-splashed trees, found a hole, and 
sneaked in. We fetched up behind a lily-bank 
and sat there watching the lake ahead. The 
gale blew up niftily in half an hour. The pi- 
rogue was lifted on the long undulations run- 
ning under the lily-bank, which creaked musi- 
cally in its waxy green leaves and bulbs. 

The water was beyond sounding depth here 
for our paddles. Again we began to wish we 
had stuck to our safe refuge on False Point 
Lake. As the lilies packed tighter we began to 
speculate on the chance of a night in the jam. 
There was not even a tree near us big enough 
to stand on. 

But as dark fell the seas began to run down. 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 199 

By seven I advised making a run for the point 
where we had seen the house, and after fight- 
ing through the lily jam and drift, we paddled 
on, and an hour later, in the shimmer of a young 
moon, we drew up to the first land we had seen 
in nine da5^s over beyond the Grand Lake 
swamps. It was a neck of marshy, muddy soil 
running down from a road where stood the little 
house we had seen. A hasty camp was made, 
and at the house, which proved to be a forlorn 
store, we learned that this was Dotreve Land- 
ing and the head of the lake. The Cajun keeper 
was much amazed to be told we had paddled 
from Point Camille in that thirteen-foot pi- 
rogue. He shook his head — I doubt if he be- 
lieves it yet. 

The next day, Sunday, we loafed and cooked. 
Our rubber cloth on which the blankets were 
laid in the tent lay in ground so soft that the 
water gathered under us and made a bubbly 
sort of bed, but we had not minded. What we 
minded most was that the few inhabitants of 
Dotreve Landing said we could not possibly get 
up farther on the chain of lakes. 



200 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

All " hell and high water " was out above, 
and, what was worse, none of them seemed to 
have any definite idea of the numberless chan- 
nels that poured into Lake Dotreve from the 
Red and Atchafalaya rivers. But they were 
mighty sure that our pirogue could not live in 
any of them — it wasn't any use of talking, a 
man simply couldn't paddle up Bayou La 
Romp or Bayou L'Embarrass! And if he 
could, where would he get to? There wasn't a 
house from here to Butte La Rose, where the 
Waterhouse boys kept the bees, and that must 
be fifty miles. 

Hen and I discussed this pessimism over our 
Sunday dinner. And by a chance, while Hen 
was off after blackberries later, I happened to 
glance lakeward, and saw a launch pounding 
up to the plank walk beyond the store. I raced 
down and found it was the Dewdrop, and she 
had come to bring some discharged men from a 
dredge boat up in the Butte La Rose country. 
A cheerful young engineer, Parmalee, was in 
charge, and it took no time for Parmalee to 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 201 

invite us to go back with liim. The way I got 
Hen out of the blackberry patch and to work 
knocking down the tent and piling stuff into 
the Bant ay an was a caution. 

Parmalee wanted to get back and across the 
bad water before night. So while the Dewdrop 
chugged across Lake Dotreve, into Bayou Ben- 
tois, then Round Lake, all lonely and aswirl 
with sullen water, we "made supper," as the 
Cajuns say. And when we struck Bayou 
L'Embarrass {Lomhrass, they pronounce it), 
we agreed with the natives for once. We 
couldn't have navigated that rush of flood 
through the crooked;, narrow channel by any 
sort of means. It was a twenty-five-mile pull 
of terrific water, sometimes one hundred feet 
deep and not more than that wide. The stout 
little Dewdrop at one bend was whirled com- 
pletely around by an eddy, and then shook her 
stubby head and tore into the yellow flood like 
a bulldog. And all the time young Parmalee 
laughed with the light of battle in his eye. 

We made Long Lake and Bayou La Romp 



202 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

more easily. Up here the flooded forests 
changed character. We saw no more moss- 
hung oak and cypress, but willows, gum, Cot- 
tonwood, and maples much like the Mississippi 
above the delta country. 

Parmalee, the launch engineer, had the usual 
incredulity when we explained our presence up 
the Atchafalaya lakes by saying we were after 
" pleasure." Honestly, we had no more explicit 
reason to give anyone! 

" I swanny," said he, " I don't know what to 
do with you. Nobody ever come runnin' into 
a headrise of these rivers for pleasure — to say 
nothing of coming in that crazy coffin of yours. 
I don't reckon you'd mind if I put you off at 
the head of La Romp. You can go hang out 
with the Waterhouse boys." 

Hen and I didn't mind anything. One place 
to go was as good as another. At least we had 
had a cheerful knocking around for the past ten 
weeks on that very principle. So at dark, 
around a flooded point, where the Grand River 
rushes out of the Atchafalaya and gives birth 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 203 

to another twisting chain of lakes ere it joins 
it again just above salt water, we were put 
ashore on a floating platform. Parmalee yelled 
cheerfully to someone coming along the planks 
with a lantern : " Hey, Loyd, take care of 
these two guys, will you?" and then the Dew- 
drop was whirled off in the flood, leaving us to 
the mercy of the strangers' hospitality. 

We had it to the full. Two brown-skinned, 
hearty young fellows grabbed our duffle and got 
it above the reach of the hungry current. They 
asked us a few questions and then set to work 
raising our tent on the only spot of land still 
out of water. 

" If this blamed crevasse drowns you off of 
here, we'll stick you in with Len's goats," they 
said cheerfully. " Sorry to say our house is 
full. One of the boys just got married!" 

We were to sleep on the gallery of what was 
once a " sto' " but now was part of the living 
rooms. Under the " gallerie " the goats and 
pigs wandered, poking in the heaps of stranded 
lilies left by the floods. Len was a great talker, 



204 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

a happy-go-lucky swamper, with a hospital- 
ity and fund of knowledge as wide as all out- 
doors. He had been a " sto'-keeper " and broke 
up at that — " had to live two years on that stock 
of groceries till I eat it all up myself, seeing I 
couldn't sell any," he put it. Then he had been 
a river pilot, but his wife objected, so now he 
stayed home and tended bees. Also he had a 
halfacre of truck garden when the Grand River 
wasn't over it. " When it is, I don't have to 
do any hoeing, anyhow," said Len with rare 
philosophy, " and when it ain't, I can depend 
on the goats and pigs taking it." 

His bee garden, back of the house, was the 
most picturesque tumbledown bit of swamp- 
yard I ever saw. Every hive was on stilts above 
the water and a perfect maze of honeysuckle, 
iris, hyacinths, red flags, palms, and banana 
trees, fig shrubs, umbrella trees, and grape- 
vines had grown up and entwined from beehive 
to fence and then to the house gallerie, and in 
and out of this wild, sweet-smelling bloom the 
scarlet tanagers and mocking birds sang and 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 205 

flitted; while under it the big bullfrogs boomed 
and croaked. We sat that night on the front 
gallerie, facing the river, and Len enlarged on 
life as he knew it. 

" It's ornery sometimes. If the river's up, I 
can't fish; and if it ain't, I've no time. When 
my wife's well she pesters me to tend the bees, 
and when she's sick I have to wash dishes. I 
ought to make a great living here, but somehow 
t don't." 

No, he didn't. In the next three days, when 
we went " bush-catting " with Len up Whiskey 
Bay and lounged around the gallerie, we had 
more grand schemes unfolded to us than is imag- 
inable. Len was going to send for Angora 
goats and start a ranch; he was going to plant 
osier willows and manufacture baskets; he had 
a great idea of making paper from the water 
hyacinth bulbs; or an indestructible and prob- 
ably unsmokable corncob pipe; and his head 
was full of plans for the forming of stock com- 
panies to sell fish and drift logs on a co-opera- 
tive basis. 



206 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

In short, Len was Colonel Sellers over again. 
Meantime, he eked out a living by taking board- 
ers — when one came along, which was seldom. 
Now and then a dredge crew stopped over at 
Len's landing, or a timber cruiser down from 
the big river. But he totally refused to accept 
a cent from us for staying there. His wife was 
ill, and Len sang as he washed the dishes, telling 
us betimes of his correspondence with the De- 
partment of Agriculture and the various soci- 
eties, mail-order houses, and promoters with 
which he had to do. He belonged to three 
detective associations and had an assortment of 
tin badges. In fact, Len was a "joiner" of 
the first water. 

But we found him lively and original. His 
wife took a humorous view of Len and life in 
general. " Len wants to go back to the river," 
she said, " but whenever Len says boats, I say 
bees — and bees it is." 

Len grinned appreciatively. Some guests 
had come in this evening from two shanty boats 
tied in the woods bank. Everybody stopped 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 207 

over at Len's when they passed Grand River, 
for a word and a cup of coffee. He was the 
fount of gossip and advice. 

*' Folks around here have elected me to be 
justice of peace three times in the kst eight 
years," drawled Len, " but I swear I never get 
time to go down to Plaquemine and qualify. 
Still " — he added reflectively — " folks go right 
on electing me. Ain't a whole lot of justice busi- 
ness here anyhow. I just tell 'em what's what 
— and they say it's all right!" 

" If Len'd take care of the bees and trim the 
vines awa^^ from this house and the hives, we'd 
have a nice place and make an easy living," said 
Mrs. Len. " But it's river and boats, boats and 
river, with these Waterhouse boys. They were 
well named. Lands, if all these lakes and 
bayous in forty miles dried up and there wasn't 
any rain for a year, I couldn't send one of these 
men folks out to the woodpile without him com- 
ing back with wet feet. Look at that boy of 
mine out there sailing a home-made pirogue in 
that puddle! And look at them chickens going 



208 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

to roost — why, even a Waterhouse chicken lias 
to scratch in mud!'* 

We laughed. The Waterhouse chickens, in- 
deed, were diligently searching for waterbugs 
in the pools about the coop, which was on the 
highest bit of land hereabout. Len laughed 
most of all at this sally. 

We went " bush-cattin' " again the next day, 
paddling our pirogues after Len into the 
flooded woods where he had six-foot lines tied 
to a long run of trees and shrubs, baited with 
shrimp caught under the water lilies. Len dis- 
covered four catfish on his bush lines — one a 
twenty-eight pounder. Also in his fyke nets we 
found five fine gaspergou, and Len was at peace 
with all the world. We would have a big 'Gou 
a la Creole to-night and he would sell the rest 
of his fish to the next trade boat for five cents a 
pound. 

We slept peacefully under our mosquito bars 
on the old " sto' " gallerie, the fragrance of the 
honeysuckle in our nostrils night long. I was 
awakened by the discontented goats out in the 



-ix 






'•'S^T' 




A terrapin hiintrr and liis '"hirtk' dogs" on Barataria Bay. 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 209 

lot trying to butt down the door of the " big 
coop " where our outfit was stored. Hen later 
went out to see if the brutes had really gotten 
in, and was promptly chased out — and the fig- 
ure he cut galloping for the fence through the 
water pools with a big black billy in full charge 
after him, both splashing water tree high, was 
diverting — except to Hen. 

That day a big dredge boat came down Grand 
River and after much excitement and trouble 
was moored by the landing. The river ran deep 
and swift and the crew was inexperienced, it 
seemed. And Len was in a dilemma. He had 
promised to board this crew on its stop-over, 
but had forgotten all about it, and now his wife 
was sick abed. 

" And here seven big husky swampers pile in 
on me and I ain't got a thing in the house!" 
confided Len to us. " What's more, I can't 
cook!" 

We made some inquiries. The " drudge " 
men would be sore, Len added, and he just 
couldn't turn anybody away. He consulted 



210 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

with his wife, but she had no solution. Hen 
and I had a consultation also, and then we went 
to Len sitting dismally on the gallerie watching 
the " drudge " crew profanely struggle with 
Grand River. 

" Len, my partner Hen is the best hand at 
chicken Maryland style that ever was," I said, 
" and I can make biscuit Cajun style that are 
some biscuit, if I do say it. And you get a 
wiggle on you and peel some potatoes and clean 
some cats and I'll make a cou'bouillion like 
Felix Landry taught me over on Lake False 
Point, and we'll give that dredge-boat crew the 
feed of their lives.'* 

Len looked up hopefully. "You will?" 

" We sure will — for the honor of Whiskey 
Bay!" 

And the way we worked the next hour was 
a credit to Whiskey Bay and all the region 
round about. We sat those seven men down to 
a dinner that they ate and ate and compli- 
mented — and one big swamper — when he found 
the fix we were in — helped wash up the dishes. 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 211 

Then we all sat out on the gallerie and 
watched the swift-flowing river and listened to 
the bees — the poor wet-footed Waterhouse bees 
going to bed in their tumbledown hives on stilts 
at sundown. 

" You fellers, gentlemen," drawled Len, 
" sure saved the honor of Whiskey Bay. I'd 
been some mortified if I hadn't been able to 
feed those guests, and maybe some of 'em would 
a-hit me a clout, too." 

The " drudge " foreman assured him they 
would have stuck him in the mud head first 
among his goats and razorbacks. We got break- 
fast for the gang the next morning — more 
chicken, fish, biscuit, and spuds. They hauled 
in the check lines and went down river filled with 
praises and provender. 

Then Len " petered out." He sat on the gal- 
lerie and refused to wash another dish. " Going 
to take the johnboat and go up to Loyd's and 
make them wimmen folks come down here and 
clean up." 

So we sat day long on the gallerie and 



212 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

watched the water go by. I began to under- 
stand why Len's neighbors could elect him three 
times to office and forgive him each time when 
he refused from sheer ineptitude to qualify. We 
had got into the dolce far niente ourselves. As 
witness, we reached this Never-Never Land and 
seemed perfectly content apparently to sit on 
the gallerie and smoke and stay and swap yarns 
with Len, or rather listen. 

For Len enlarged further. He wanted to 
become a boat builder. " Make 'em by the mile 
and saw 'em off long as you want," added Len. 
He was sure a sinkboat to find and raise the 
lost drift logs for the lumber company would 
pay. Or frogs for the N'Awlyins market. Or 
turkeys in the dry season — if there was one. 
Or his old love — willow baskets made from the 
osier. " The Gove'ment," said Len, " is mighty 
anxious for me to try it. They send me more 
stuff than you can shake a stick at about basket 
willers. But maybe " — he reflected — " they's 
more money in goats. Or sometimes I think I'd 
make a durn good book agent — or a detective.'* 

So he idled away life in his sweet-smelling 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 213 

swamp-garden — a bit of Arcady, with the net 
of crape myrtle, alpha bush, jessamine and 
honeysuckle woven over everything. His an- 
cient " sto' " was a lamentable junk shop of old 
tackle, motor engine parts, seines, candles, and 
remnants of the grocery stock. Adjoining was 
a neat parlor with a rag carpet and on the table 
a big mail-order catalog, a Bible, and a book, 
" Thirty Years of Hell," by " an Ex-Priest." 
Also a New Orleans newspaper nine days 
old. 

" I keep right up to the now" said Len 
proudly. " When any bayou folks want the 
news, or the baby gets sick, or they want legal 
advice, they come down to my place. Some- 
times I see as many as five boats tied up here — 
come all the way from Butte La Rose or Choc- 
tahoula or Happy Land to ask me something. 
Yes, sir, sometimes they passes 'way in the mid- 
dle of the night and holler me out and ask some- 
thing. And sometimes they tie up to the bank 
and stay a month, sitting round here on the 
gallerie and talking." 

" Sit round and talk to Len and cod the goat," 



214 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

commented Mrs. Len. " Land, they ain't a 
hustle in the whole bushel of 'em! Some stay 
a month and some just for coffee, and a body 
like Len can't just get no work done." 

It didn't worry Len. We " sat around the 
gallerie" considerably, day in and out, and to 
it came a happy-go-lucky itinerant lot of visit- 
ors. A broken-down dredge engineer, a Con- 
federate veteran and his half-Indian son, a man 
from Texas, a scholmaster down from drink, a 
former river pilot — all knew Len Waterhouse, 
each was sure of welcome, coffee, advice. 

For a livelihood they fished or picked up drift 
logs. " One way and another we all git on," 
said Len. " Sometimes I get such a raft of 
folks here that I think I'll cut loose that old 
shanty boat of mine and bump on down river 
and see the world. Some time " 

But he won't! He'll sit on his gallerie, roll 
a cigarette, stir his coffee as he watches the 
ragged woods across the yellow river, and com- 
plain amiably of life — and serve his neighbors. 
What more? 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 215 

The fish boats will come and trade groceries 
for his catch and the visitors fetch the news. 
The brown river will bring its fullness to his 
door; it may be whimsical in delays, but one 
way and another, one will get a living out of it. 
One can be sure of that — and meantime listen to 
the bees and tree frogs and smell the honey- 
suckle. 

When the shades of night fell on this sweet 
wild garden Len would begin his complacent 
summing up of the day and the world. And 
by his side, as he tilted back his feet on the gal- 
lerie rail, a tree frog would tune up in the rain- 
v/ater trough that led to the barrel. And the 
more Len talked on, the louder the tree frog 
would sing. Finally, when the racket grew so 
shrill in our ears that Hen and I could no 
longer hear what Len was talking about, he 
would turn and seize the tree frog and throw it 
off in the grass. 

" There — Dod-burn you — don't you know 
better than to yell in a man's ears when he's 
talking to these gentlemen ? " 



216 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

But the next evening the tree frog would be 
back on the rain barrel yelling loud as ever. 

Then there was another old bullfrog that used 
to live under the split pirogue that served as a 
sidewalk, placed upside down, from the gallerie 
to the big cistern. The only time one used this 
was when the weather was wet and then it was 
so slippery that a man couldn't keep a footing, 
but whenever one did step on the shell, the big 
bullfrog boomed out menacingly. 

Len, after the peace of the tree frog's exile, 
mellowed a bit on his family. " Here's my boy, 
Hubert, he does hate whiskey. Some folks won- 
der how we can raise a smartable boy like him 
down in these swamps, but talk about city edu- 
cation! Why, here he grows clean and sweet, 
and his mother teaches him to read and figger. 
He says his prayers at night, and when Brother 
Metreve comes in his gas boat once a month 
from Happy Land, there ain't nobody listens 
to the Word like my boy Hubert. He feels bad 
because old Fitzande's kids don't pray, and I 
heard him once just beg Francois to say a 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 217 

j)rayer in Cajun. ' I guess,' says Hubert, 
'that God knows some Cajun.'" 

Hubert, a brown-eyed, gentle lad, like all 
these woods youngsters, carried in his stove 
wood, chased the pigs out of the house lot, and 
sailed his little self-made boats on the flood 
ponds. My heart went out to him as to all these 
brave, simple, and efficient children of the wil- 
derness. Hubert knew all the Grand River 
boats — he could tell miles away by the exhaust 
or the whistle just whether it was the Queenie 
or the River Belle, and what cargo she would 
likely carry. He was a slim young nimrod. In 
the dried swamps of autumn he and Len hunted 
deer and squirrel, and in the wintei the ducks 
and water fowl to ship out to the New Orleans 
markets. Then in the spring, when the sun 
creeps high over the land and sends the melted 
snows down the Mississippi to crash through the 
Red and Atchafalaya, short-cutting to the sea, 
Len and his boy Hubert bush-catted and ran 
the drift logs until the July slackening of the 
water came, leaving the brown mud incrusta- 



218 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

tions on tree and vine. Then the fish die, and 
the mosquitoes are ravenous, and the boats do 
not come to upper Grand River until the 
dreamy dry autumn brings the trapping and 
the hunting once more. 

So goes the life of the South woods, under 
the ever-soft skies of Louisiana. Coffee, cigar- 
ettes, a trifle of danger along with the indolence ; 
a mosquito to slap in the warm evenings ; enough 
of gossip and new faces to break the monotony 
— and alwaj^s, in every heart, that easy antici- 
pation of better times; of the days when the 
railroad will build a cut-off through the upper 
swamps and have a station only nine miles away; 
of the promise that the Plaquemine locks will 
be enlarged so that the Red River packets will 
come down to the Grand, and then " Up In 
Back " to the plantation country. " Some day! " 
said the bayou folk with satisfaction. Also there 
are some who believe that *' some day " the en- 
tire mighty Mississippi will grind its way down 
the Atchtfalaya cut-off to the Gulf and leave 
New Orleans stranded! 

Len, too, added gossip of his neighbors along 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 219 

with affairs of the time. There was Dick Harp, 
a " comical cuss," who came down the river one 
night pretending to be the State inspector of 
seines and nets, yelling to all the camps and 
shanty-boats : *' Get out your seines. I'm com- 
ing to look at the size of your meshes ! " 

Now there wasn't a fisher that conformed to 
the legal size mesh, so every Cajun dropped his 
coffee and cigarettes, rushed to his seines, and 
hid them in the deep swamp or sunk them in the 
bayous. They kept them hidden a week until 
they discovered the " inspector " was Dick 
Harp. 

" Some of these swampers would a-killed 
Dick if he'd come back that spring," said 
Len. 

Dick was also the " cuss " who — being a part- 
ner in a lumber concern that hired two civil 
engineers to do some work down in the swamps 
— was offered a dollar by one of these city chaps 
to take him out to the canal when the task was 
over. Dick had come to camp rough-dressed 
and in his own gas boat, and the engineer did 
not recognize his own employer. " Old Dick,'* 



220 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

said Len, " took the dollar and brought the man 
out and never said a word. Lordy, and Dick 
has enough money to buy all the college engi- 
neers in the hull gove'ment ! " 

Then there was " Hell fer 'Lection " Blake, 
who owned a steamer and hired a dredge to do 
some contract work down Belle River. "Hell 
fer 'Lection " started to tow the dredge down 
with his steamer, slammed the boat ashore on 
a bar in falling water, and spent the rest of the 
summer trying to dig his own boat out with the 
dredge instead of having the dredge work for 
him! 

Len was chivalrously inclined to the gentler 
sex. He asked if Hen and I were married and 
seemed disappointed. " And durn me if your 
hair ain't thinner'n mine, too. Well, you can't 
always tell. You got to eat a barrel of salt 
with a woman before you can know her — and 
some men don't like salt." 

That last night we talked late on the gallerie. 
And long after midnight, when we had turned 
in, I was aroused by voices outside, to discover 



THE WATERHOUSE BOYS 221 

that some swamper had come in from his lonely 
camp to consult Len about a sick wife. And 
Len was up *' puttering " about in the left-over 
stock of drugs and patent medicines of his de- 
funct general store. They measured and tasted 
and discussed and Len was all eagerness to help. 
He sent the man away with advice called out 
long after the swamper was out on the dark 
river. " Give her a hull spoonful every hour 
and soak her feet in the mustard, and if she 
don't come 'round hard a-port and answer the 
helm, we'll mix up a little something else to- 
morry! " 

Good old Len! 

He was visibly perturbed when we told him 
that we would go on down Grand River that 
day. 

" Hate to see you go. Folks most generally 
stay round a month when they strike my place, 
so's we can have a little talk. I do like to meet 
folks 'at come right out of the world." 

We assured Len our regard was mutual ; and 
then, after minute instructions as to how we 



222 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

should navigate some of the quick water below 
in Grand River, and where we should find camps 
in the wild country around Bay Natchez, see- 
ing we were fools enough to travel that way in 
a pirogue, we set off. 

Len stood on his gallerie and shouted us God- 
speed. "Any time you want to make a fool of 
yourself again, come back to Whiskey Bay. 
Some time you will — right back yere, raising 
bees and married to a swamp angel ! " 



CHAPTER XI 

ADRIFT WITH THE FLOATING GARDENS 

GRAND RIVER grew more wild and 
beautiful all that day's dash with the 
current, narrower, swifter, over its banks 
and surging the overhanging branches of the 
trees along with it so that the shores were a con- 
tinual motion and glitter of kaleidoscopic green 
and gray — cypress and oak in the background, 
with before them the young willow and hack- 
berry. We saw no one from Waterhouse's to 
Bayou Plaquemine, where we encountered a 
negro pirogue hunter with eighteen black squir- 
rels, and then discovered a store on the bayou 
bank. This was the first land we had seen all 
day. We traveled on again into the woods and 
made a fine camp in the willows six miles below. 
The weather had been so good of late that we 

223 



224 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

did not put up the silk tent, but rigged our mos- 
quito-bars to lines from tree to tree, and slept 
peacefully on our rubber cloth and blankets. 

Squirrel jambelaya for breakfast — and pan- 
cakes and honey from our good friends above. 
Then off, to encounter a great rush of water 
coming out of Pigeon Lake that danced us all 
day merrily in the midst of a river now filled 
with the beautiful floating hyacinths. We were 
twenty-two miles in this moving flower-bed with- 
out once being able to make a landing. Not 
that we tried — it was too splendid and novel a 
trip. We sat back lazily and smoked while the 
traveling garden bore us on. 

" Where," asked Hen somnolently, " are we 
gomg { 

" I don't know. Len said there was a big 
camp down on Belle River, where the chaps 
would be glad to see us." 

"Where's Belle River?" 

" I don't know exactly. Len said it was 
down somewhere where there was a big camp, 
where the chaps " 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 225 

" Oh," said Hen, " you don't know where 
you're going!" 

*' Neither do you," I retorted, and the sun 
being fine and the morning fair, we couldn't 
see much use of worrying about it. 

If you will take a map of detail you will see 
the absolute uselessness of worrying. The 
Grand River in springtime jets out of the 
Atchafalaya, which spouts out of the swollen 
side of the Mississippi. The Atchafalaya wan- 
ders down through a dozen lakes and nameless 
bayous to the Gulf, and the Grand meanders 
its way alongside, with now and then an inter- 
locking arm or bayou running across to its 
neighbor, and these streams flow in and out, 
back and forth, in a crazy-patch fashion through 
unbroken forests. The only thing a fellow had 
to guess right on was to stick to Grand River 
and not be deceived by these cross bayous, which 
would whirl him off into the flooded and unpeo- 
pled north shores of Grand Lake, which is not 
made for pirogue-running, as we remembered 
well. 



226 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

But Hen and I never gave it a thought. We 
" lazed " all that day in the lily drift, only work- 
ing once when we fought a way to shore to where 
a tiny f armlet offered a chance to buy eggs. Then 
a few miles below we found a small channel 
winding off northward through very tall cy- 
press. That interested us. We knew vaguely 
that all the water ought to run southeasterly to 
the Gulf fifty or seventy miles away. But this 
quiet baby stream, disappearing under the 
gloomy trees, showing clear water, was entic- 
ing. Without any conference we turned into 
it. It must go somewhere. Maybe to the long- 
sought Fountain. Who knew? 

We had a week's grub — why care? Anyhow, 
we floated off and into the heart of the biggest 
virgin cypress we had ever seen. Astonished and 
delighted with all this primal forest, we paddled 
on half an hour, and just at sunset we came out 
suddenly into a sedgy pool that opened on a 
quiet lake reflecting the sunset, while across, not 
a quarter of a mile away, uprose the sheer, grim 
gray of the mighty cypress once more. Never 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 227 

had we come on a more beautiful spot than that 
silent, reed-lined mirror with the towering trees 
about. We paddled across the lake, wondering 
if it had an outlet. Then we saw a break in 
the lower end, a bit of marsh, and the distant 
blue of the evening woods. We headed for this, 
threaded a lagoon all but lily-choked, and found 
a stream flowing on as placid and clear as if 
the roaring yellow of the upper river floods had 
never found it. As indeed they had not. We 
were in the upper head of Bay Natchez, but did 
not know it. We paddled on for an hour, the 
cypress withdrawing itself until it was again the 
gray iron wall, while between was the soft green 
of willowed ridges, acres of purple lilies, bright 
grasses, and reflecting pools. We paddled down 
the stream, warily seeking the main channel, for 
the spot did not offer a camp. And after some 
miles of this we rounded a marshy bank to dis- 
cover ourselves once more in the silent and deep- 
flowing Grand River, the woods on either side 
and the unending di-ift of the hyacinths to the 
sea. 



228 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

It was dark by now. We battled with the 
flood and the flowers some time before we could 
make a landing, and at that were forced ashore 
almost a mile below the spot we had first picked 
out. It was amazing where all the lilies came 
from. The floods must be pushing them out of 
every swamp from Red River to the Gulf. But 
we got to land at last where neither lilies nor 
drift logs impeded and made a hasty camp, 
broiled some bacon, made tea, and rolled in our 
blankets. We had put the tent up here, for a 
storm was brewing in the southwest, and besides 
we had an idea of looking about this wild bit of 
woods and water. 

A Sunday of amazing glory awaited. I 
rather think of all the four months' knocking 
about, that camp below Bay Natchez was the 
best. We saw no one in two days. And the 
life of the woods and water was varied and un- 
usual. The trees were filled with songsters, 
bright-hued and flitting, making music all the 
day, and out over the river black and snowy 
herons floated. Loons, ducks, and yellow-limbed 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 229 

gallinules were circling above the sedgy flat 
across from us, and a white egret sailed over 
the lily drift. And as we proceeded with the 
breakfast-getting, a white-headed eagle floated 
above us, looking down with sharp, flitting eyes 
to our humble camp, as if questioning the advis- 
ability of allowing us to stay. 

After a contenting meal and leisurely smoke 
we paddled out on the river to look about the 
bend. The curving forest hid all view below 
us. The giant gars were splashing the water 
under the lily drift. The channel here flowed 
much easier and had lost its yellow, angry hue 
of the flood water. Along our shore, in the 
bend, where the slower water from Bay Natchez 
had the right of way, it was even clear and dark 
with the peculiar swamp luster which we had 
noticed often in the untouched deep swamp. 
And for miles below Bay Natchez, which is 
merely a huge pocket of the drainage flow from 
the rivers above, we found the black water and 
the " white water," as the natives call the flood, 
running side by side. 



230 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

We went back to camp, having much diffi- 
culty with the lilies in reaching shore. In an 
hour the breeze sprang up and the rest of the 
day we were hopelessly blocked in. The water 
plants packed so tightly along the bank that it 
took some effort to part them when we wanted 
to dip a bucket of water from the stream. 
Sunday, as usual, was washday, and soon we 
had every dud in camp hanging to the bushes, 
while we lolled about in an Edenic comfort. 

" And not an Eve in forty miles, thank 
Heaven," Hen said contentedly. " It's great ! " 

So we smoked and idled. And as fine luek 
fell we discovered a trim little Mobilian turtle 
among the driftwood and had him cleaned and 
in a pot in no time. He made a great stew with 
tomatoes (canned, of course), onions, potatoes, 
bacon, and a bit of garlic and thyme. And as 
we cooked this turtle contentedly we found an- 
other and put him in the pirogue, where we 
carried him for the next week scratching around 
under the duffles and poking his red-and-striped 
head among the canned goods in a sort of in- 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 231 

jured way, as if it was a mean trick to shut 
him among all these edibles without a can- 
opener. 

The wind shifted a point or two and began to 
move the four-acre patch of hyacinths out of 
our cove in the afternoon. Then we went fish- 
ing, still in our state of e pluribus unum, as Hen 
had it. What was the use of clothes, anyhow? 
We were astonished at the lack of mosquitoes — 
and also at the lack of fish. Privately I was 
glad — never did like to fish much. Even Hen, 
with all his silver-tipped outfit, lolling in the end 
of the canoe without a stitch on his hide, a cig- 
arette in his mouth, seemed pleased that the fish 
didn't bother us. We had grown shiftless, I'll 
admit. But it seemed good. Even a fellow's 
tobacco down in this Cajun country was sort 
of easy-going and fritter-minded, not caring 
whether it burned or not. 

The egrets — snowy-plumed and stately — 
were flying up the silent river. A great gray 
heron stood on one leg across from us on a log, 
reflected perfectly in the slow-shifting mirror. 



232 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

And long angles of ducks went above to their 
feeding-ground in the prairie which we could see 
to the west below the cypress wall. As soon as 
Hen and I could reasonably excuse each other 
from fishing we went ashore, put on some 
clothes, and built a roaring bonfire, for the May 
night was cool. We sang lullabies to each other 
until nine and then turned in the blankets, first 
making our usual snake-inspection when we 
stayed more than one night in a spot. Not a 
serpent in our Eden. 

"Bully!" murmured Hen. "This spot is 
right-o. Let's stay till we're out of grub!" 

But we didn't get through that night without 
incident. About midnight, when we were lost 
to the world, one of those sudden, ripping gales 
hit us and for an hour the air was filled with 
blown twigs and moss, with now and then a limb 
from one of the cypress crashing down near us. 
We lay in our blankets, watching the incessant 
bursts of lightning through the bellying walls 
of the tent. Several times it lifted wildly in the 
gusts and then — down it came! 



. n 



bX) 






THE FLOATING GARDENS 233 

[With it came the rain. We lay there under 
the clammy silk and discussed the weather far 
from amicably. It was two o'clock before the 
storm was over, and then we had to get out 
shiveringly and draw the tent back on its pegs, 
slopping around in the water pools and inci- 
dentally dragging our blankets into the mud. 
But that was a casual incident. When we 
crawled out again the day was clear and a cool 
norther was blowing — very cold, indeed, for the 
tenth of May in Louisiana. 

We felt so chilled in the shades of the great 
wet trees that I proposed breaking camp and 
going on down this uninhabited river. We got 
away at ten o'clock, pushing the canoe out into 
a singing, creaking lily field and being swept 
away at once with it on the norther. 

A mile below we got ashore on a reedy bank 
and spent an ineffectual hour trying to photo- 
graph the egrets and loggerhead turtles about 
the pools. But they were too wild, and Hen 
had also his usual trouble with that camera. It 
was, as I had remarked before, endowed with 



234 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

so many stops, plugs, throttles, timers, sema- 
phore signals, and nobody knows what else that 
by the time all these were ready and Hen had 
studied up his literature to see about the time 
and lighting and the temperature and the price 
of wheat at Duluth, the blamed bird or wood- 
chuck or whatever it was had got tired of pos- 
ing and had gone off. Then Hen invariably 
accused me of scaring it away. 

Then we had to ungear that mysterious cam- 
era and repack it, and paddle down this aston- 
ishingly beautiful and lonely river. As we 
looked ahead over the nearer shore we saw 
higher ridges apparently, a fine hill with a 
smiling countryside stretched beneath. 

It was that old fascinating illusion of \he 
swamps — a vista of marsh appearing to be gol- 
den stubble, a line of mangroves like a well- 
ordered hedge about a decent farm lot and back 
of it the pasture slopes of New England or 
Wisconsin — it was incredible that we were look- 
ing upon nothing but woods, and woods whose 
feet were deep in the black cypress water! 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 235 

But a few miles on we were startled by the 
shrill yelp of a whistle far in the forest. 

" Forgey's camp," said Hen; "it's time we 
were near it." 

But it was not. We came about a bend to 
a " pullboat," alongside of which was a quarter- 
boat with a good-natured darky poking his head 
from the kitchen to greet us. We climbed up 
and met the boss and the bookkeeper. It was 
Van Norman's camp, and the pullboat engine 
was " snaking " the big cypress out of a cutting 
a mile away by means of a steel cable that ran 
up the " road " through the forest. We were 
made welcome, dined with the hospitable crew, 
engineer, boss, clerk, and other few white men 
of the camp. Out of the woods poured a wet 
and dirty army of swampers at noon. 

Van Norman was proud of his camp and 
gang. He insisted on taking us up the pull- 
boat road after the meal, but I decided to go 
hunting in a light " runnin' pirogue " in the 
swamp. Hen went back to the " slashin'," and 
had a most diverting time trying to keep dry 



236 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

by jumping from log to log on the pullboat 
road. He gave it up after a while and went in 
as the swampers go — regardless of the water. 
I went in far enough to get a sense of the for- 
lorn aspect of the forest after the " falling 
crew " is through with it — the gigantic cypress 
thrown in every direction and the skinned young 
saplings struggling up through the wreck from 
the water. 

Van Norman insisted that we occupy the 
quarterboat with his white men, but we pre- 
ferred to make camp, so at dusk we dropped 
down stream to a fine grove of oaks on the high- 
est bit of land we had seen in weeks — quite six 
feet above the river. Latanier palms, hack- 
berry, brilliant young maples grew about the 
point, while back of us was a perfect mat of 
blackberry vines. 

We fell on them before breakfast with gusto. 
"Let's stay a week!" said Hen. "Blackberry 
smash for lunch and blackberry pie for dinner. 
And listen to the birds sing! Every blamed 
one of 'em is probably good to eat ! " 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 237 

We had quests for breakfast — two shy young 
Creoles who were paddling from Forked Horn 
Bayou, they said. They could not talk much 
English, but when we motioned to the coffee 
they accepted with enthusiasm. Then along 
came young Keller, the bookkeeper, just to see 
how we were making out and to ask us up to 
Van Norman's to dine. We all made coffee 
again and drank It about the coals — three times 
since we got out of bed! 

Again, ye neurasthenics, how about five cups 
of coffee before ten a.m.? Before we came in 
the big woods and forgot the banal towns, one 
brew of the stuff would have demoralized me. 
And this was coffee — not the boiled Northern 
concoction. We could drip it now with any 
wandering hunter of the swamps and earn his 
commendation. 

We went fishing in the afternoon — lazily. 
And the fish bit lazily, not seeming to care 
whether they got hooked or not. We paddled 
to the pullboat, dined with the boys and stayed 
until ten o'clock. Then we pulled away from 



238 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the camp, dropped easily down river in the star- 
light, well pleased with ourselves, until Hen 
suddenly shifted, looked around at me, and 
remarked : 

" By the way, do you know where our tent 
is?" 

I didn't. It dawned on us that we had been 
shot by the current into the narrowing part of 
the river where the great trees overhung, mak- 
ing an impenetrable darkness. And somewhere 
along here we must find that camp! We could 
see nothing, except now and then the dim top 
of a tree clump against the stars, and we could 
hear the gurgle and whisper of the river under 
the overhanging boughs. We didn't care par- 
ticularly about being capsized on these current- 
swept limbs. 

*' Gone too far," said Hen, and after a con- 
sultation we came about and paddled up. We 
racked our brains to think of some distinguish- 
ing mark by the tent — and couldn't. 

" There was a clump of palms right back of 
us," I murmured, " and a big oak " 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 239 

" Lot of good that is! Can you see a thing? " 
Then Hen sniffed— " Hal" 

"Ha— what?" 

*'I have it. I smell it I" 

"Smell what?" 

" Pie ! — camp — home! " 

"Darned if you do!" 

" Yes, I do. That blackberry pie that drib- 
bled so — and you laid it on the big stump right 
by the water! Hard-a-starboard ! Dig!" 

Now did two lost woodsmen ever retrieve 
themselves with a blackberry pie? We did. I 
told you we would tell you something you never 
heard of before. In the curriculum of wood- 
craft, find a rplace for blackberry pie. Hen 
could nose his way around the world in the wake 
of a blackberry pie. In ten minutes we were 
ashore, struggling through brush, feeling about, 
striking matches and — then I rammed my fist 
square down into that blackberry pie. Next 
morning it was a total wreck, with many ants 
trying to claim salvage on it. 

Hen went back to the pullboat to try for 



240 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

more pictures of Van Norman's crew. I bor- 
rowed Keller's " runnin' pirogue " and went 
after squirrels down the river. I pumped one 
load of No. 7 at a big brown eagle and he 
merely smiled down at me. Here and there, on 
the gray bark of the trees, a squirrel dodged 
about. I had to pot them as the canoe shot by 
in that dancing current. Let me tell you, shoot- 
ing squirrels from a pirogue calls for some deli- 
cacy of judgment. The kick of the gun will 
upset as ticklish a bit of wood as I was in unless 
one has his shot figured to a nicety. You get a 
glimpse of the squirrel swinging from limb to 
limb up in the filigree of green against the light, 
you swing hard on the paddle with your right 
hand, bringing the pirogue hard about, raising 
the gun with your left as you come bow-on with 
the quarry. Then — quick or never! You drop 
the paddle, brace your knees on the coaming, 
swing your shoulders tensely back, bring the 
gun up, find your squirrel, and shoot just as 
the sight comes squarely over the pirogue's nose. 
I tried one broadside shot and nearly went over 





Site of Jran T.aFitte's fort at (Iraiid 'J'crre. 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 241 

in that swift water. And once over I never 
could have got back to camp until they came to 
look for me, hanging to some half -submerged 
tree. 

I managed to bag three squirrels, having no 
end of difficulty in finding them, for they 
dropped plump down in the water through a 
magnificent tangle of vines and bamboo brier. 
But it was novel and exhilarating sport, giving 
one a thrill worthy of bigger game, for one was 
fighting every minute against the treacherous 
boils and eddies sucking under the jungle banks. 
I killed a huge fish-hawk as I paddled back, 
catching it so fairly above me that it fell straight 
down, landed on mj^ knees, and sat there glaring 
up. I heard a shout of laughter at this, and 
discovered a Cajun hunter balancing in his pi- 
rogue, holding to the twig of a tree, and look- 
ing at me. 

" Das good! " he cried. " But, man, don' yo* 
try sooch fancy shoots out-a dat leetle coffin! 
No Yankee can run dat pirogue ! " 

I was some set up when I got back to Van 



242 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Norman's to discover that the boys had given 
me the most treacherous bit of cypress shell in 
the camp — and thought I wouldn't dare shoot 
from it. I didn't tell them of the practice I'd 
had pirogue hunting with Florion Landry. 

Mangy, the colored cook, insisted on stewing 
that fish-hawk for us, but we declined. So he 
served it to the black hands. They said it was 
great. Maybe, but it didn't look so. I'd already 
eaten mink fricassee and alligator gar and shark 
meat, but somehow that stewed hawk didn't re- 
semble anything that we thought would do our 
hair or dyspepsia any good. 

" Mangy," said Hen, " give it to the boys 
with our blessing. I'm feeling too fine now to 
experiment with hawk stew — ^we'll be mighty 
generous, Mangy, and let you have all of it." 

Thirty miles below we stopped at Forgey's 
Belle River camp. 

Big Captain Forgey gave us a genial wel- 
come. He had heard two strangers were headed 
his way from Len Waterhouse's, the news 
coming in that mysterious and swift channel by 
which gossip travels in the wilderness. 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 243 

Forgey's was the " big model camp " of the 
Grand Lake country. Every building and 
fence was whitewashed and no jumble of dis- 
carded log machinery was about. " Things go 
here like a clock," said the Captain, " and I got 
the best crew, white and black, in the big woods. 
Come in and stay a couple of weeks and see for 
yourself." 

That was the usual way. If you stayed less 
than two weeks the woodsmen thought you must 
be peeved about something. 

This was a "skidder camp," and the man- 
agers boasted that '" skidding " was a better way 
to get the timber out of the deep swamp than 
*' pullboating." The place where the logs were 
cut was four miles " up in back." A miniature 
railroad track led off across the swamp water to 
this cutting. The next day, after a pleasant 
night's chat in the company's store and a sleep 
in real beds with real sheets in the rooms above, 
we were taken out to the " slashin' " where the 
eighty black men of the outfit worked. 

The little wood-burning engine, with us sit- 
ting on the water tank, drawing a rattling line 



244 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

of log trucks up the crazy track, went off in the 
most dismal bit of forest we had seen. Up at 
the " slashin' " the trees had been " deaded '* a 
year or more and the vast stretch was lifeless 
and grim standing out of the black water. Here 
and there the " fallers," working in pairs, were 
attacking the cypress; and let me say that one 
of the finest things we saw was a huge black 
man, naked to the waist, his back and biceps 
shining with the sweat, standing with one foot 
in his pirogue and the other holding by the toes 
in a notch of the tree, while he hewed the great 
trunk down. There's a trick! 

When the tree was ready to fall, the chopper 
dropped back in his canoe and with a single 
backward shoot took himself far out of danger 
as the big trunk struck the water and rebounded 
high in the air. 

The swamp niggers were a picturesque lot, 
more independent than the plantation darkies, 
moving about with an insolent swagger at the 
store, buying toothpick shoes and high-priced 
clothes to wear down to Mawgan City to see 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 245 

their women. But they stood apart for the big 
Captain, who knocked one of them down when 
he objected to giving up his seat in the boat to 
a white man. It is a rough man's world, the 
Louisiana cypress swamps. 

Forgey was a Western type, a devil-may-care 
chap who had the reputation of being the best 
camp boss on the river. He had his own twenty- 
two-miles-an-hour motorboat when he wanted to 
get down to tidewater at Morgan City. He was 
proud, too, of the camp grub — fresh eggs, cow 
milk, green peas, beans, rice, potatoes, cabbage, 
pork shoulder — nearly all raised by some of his 
old niggers on the high spots around camp. Cow 
milk and fresh eggs! Hen and I did stay a 
week, sure enough. I put in the time painting 
the Bantayan, while Hen took more fruitless 
pictures. 

The white men of the camp were few but in- 
teresting. There was Minas, the Mexican en- 
gineer of the launch, Stanbury the clerk, a fine 
young Mississipplan; Adams, a Creole, who 
brought in supplies ; and two small boys, one the 



246 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

machine shop helper and the other a fire guard 
at the skidder. Very silent, manly little chaps 
these were. The " fallers " were all negroes, 
but the " tree deadeners " were Creoles. How- 
ever, the race question seemed to adjust itself, 
and life in the big swamp camp went on amica- 
bly. The head cook was up at three o'clock each 
morning, and the men at four. Coffee was 
served at once to all who wished to visit the kitch- 
en in line. In fact, it was the custom for any 
man to drop in, if work did not engross him, 
for a cup of coffee any time of day. Then the 
camp buildings became deserted, for at five- 
thirty everyone was off to the woods until noon 
when the little train pulled in and the hungry 
swampers made a rush for the cookhouse. Then 
back once more until six. 

Up in the slashin' the men were divided into 
gangs; fallers, sawyers, track layer's, riggers, 
tonghookers, and signalmen. There were two 
skidder machines working and these drew the 
logs to the railroad tracks and loaded them on 
the trucks by means of a rude aerial cable way. 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 247 

The riggers attached the logs to these cables 
which were suspended from huge treetops here 
and there; and then the engine raised them bod- 
ily and they came swinging on over the under- 
brush and water to be dropped on the trucks. 
Then the loaders adjusted them, and when the 
train was made up it chugged out to the river 
camp four miles away. It was rude, rough 
work, the men often in water above their waists, 
but the day's grind went through cheerfully. 

I finished painting the pirogue, and she was 
very gay in her red, black, and yellow. Captain 
Forgey told us a funny story of how, one time, 
as a joke he told all the Creole traders and trap- 
pers round about that they must jiame their 
boats before they could land at his wharf. This 
bothered one old fisherman very much, for he 
couldn't think of a name for his scow and 
couldn't write it anyway. As his was a boat that 
called every Monday, the genial Captain sug- 
gested it be called : " Run Monday," and he 
made a stencil for the M'sieu Skipper. 

The next week M'sieu Skipper of the craft 



248 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

came back and very proudly with Run Monday 
across the bows — upside down and backwards I 

He had hauled his boat out and turned her 
over when he put the stencil on her wood. " Dog- 
gone him," said Captain Forgey, " that boat's 
running around here yet. He got the joke on 
me and didn't know it ! " 

Sunday in camp was a lazy day. I remember 
the night before that we had discussed fishing, 
and Hen had casually complained that fishing 
had been poor. He would liked to have had 
some fish. 

Well, the next morning about daybreak we 
were awakened by the most terrific explosion 
seemingly right under our noses. I crawled out 
of bed and looked to see if a boiler hadn't blo^vn 
up somewhere. On the end of the wharf stood 
an interested group. 

Out on the river were four boats loaded with 
darkies yelling and splashing and rowing about. 

" What the blazes is the matter? " murmured 
Hen sleepily. 

A man grinned up pleasantly. " Oh, we heard 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 249 

you gentlemen say you-all liked fish so we sent 
the boys out there this mawnin' to dynamite the 
river." 

Now I call that hospitality. " The boys " 
brought in a bushel or so of gaspergou and cat- 
fish so all the camp breakfasted on them. I 
hear my sporting friends murmur something 
about the game and fish laws? 

Quien sabe? I reckon they haven't got far, 
down in the deep swamp, with laws and regula- 
tions. 

We lounged in the shade of the store gallerie. 
It was about the sixteenth of May and just be- 
ginning to warm up a bit like summer. Minas> 
the handsome Mexican engineer, was hollow- 
eyed and languid. The boys joshed him about 
just getting back to camp for breakfast from a 
trip to see his girl at Four Mile Bayou. Minas 
yawningly admitted it. I asked Minas why, as 
it was Sunday he didn't make a day of it, too, 
and he sighed. 

" Oh, I got another girl up Little Godell and 
maybe dis afternoon, I'll be passin' dat way." 



250 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

"Girls — girls!" growled Hen, "here it goes 
once more. Right off here in the peace of the 
woods somebody lugs in the subject. I'm free, 
white, and twenty-one, and I protest " 

Minas waved his hand languidly out to the 
river. And I swear to you I looked to see one 
of the prettiest (Hen doesn't know I'm writ- 
ing this) sights I ever looked on. It was ten 
o'clock of a bright May day and the sun shone 
down on a sparkling river banded everywhere 
with the wild hyacinths in full bloom and drift- 
ing with the tide. And among the flowers were 
two push-boats loaded with Creole girls in bright 
dresses. One girl in each boat was standing up, 
working the long oars easily with a graceful step 
forward, a turn of the wrist, a slow recovery 
with the step back as she feathered the blades. 
And the others sat in bow and stern trailing 
lilies in the water and singing! 

I was amazed. What and where? 

" Come from dat ball down Lake Verret," 
drawled Minas, " and just getting home up 
Four-Bayou." 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 251 

The store keeper, the engineer, and the loung- 
ing white boys turned longing eyes toward the 
flower-circled galleys. The dark-eyed girls 
looked back, but went slowly on, singing and 
pushing their heavy boats against the lily drift. 
They were rowing twelve miles home after an 
all-night dance that did not end 'til sun rise. 
And how they had strength left to sing at the 
task was beyond our city minds to grasp. But I 
will not soon forget the pretty, wholesome sight, 
nor the drawling comments of clean, kindly 
humor with which the young men of the camp 
looked after them. 

Sunday night as we sat about the store gal- 
lerie, our hosts proposed that we go to 
" meetin'." 

I looked around. Nothing in camp looked 
like divine services. 

" Oh, that's all right, sure ! " went on Captain 
Forgey, hospitably. " There aren't any just 
now but I can scare some up. Here you, Hog- 
jaw," he continued addressing an idling young 
black, " go over to the bunkhouse and tell the 



252 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

boys we're going to have church — and we want 

it good." 

And in about ten minutes we heard the most 

fearful cater-wauling over in the whitewashed 

sheds imaginable, a pounding and hobbling 

about in a rude dance and now and then a yell 

to Heaven, 

" I reckon," drawled Minas, " Crump and 

Hogjaw and Ole Doc Fortune has got 'em or- 
ganized.'* 

When we arrived at the bunkhouse the center 
of the floor was filled with dancing darkies, lan- 
terns in hand, swinging and swaying about, while 
others in the bunks kept time with their hands, 
and feet, interspersed now and then with whoops 
and calls upon the Lord. We listened with in- 
terest. I thought it was a joke at first, but it 
was not. In half an hour the negroes had 
worked themselves up to a frenzy, writhing, 
twisting, rolling their eyes, the sweat pouring 
from them as they danced and chanted, while a 
cloud of dust rose up that all but hid the cele- 
brants. 



THE FLOATING GARDENS 253 

As far as I could make out their chief hymn 
went: 

" Ah tek dat boat to Buelah Lan' — 
Oh— Oh— Ah— eee ! 
De Lawd done mek me a present gran' — 
Oh— Oh— Ah— eee ! 
And Ah's g'wine fo' to see! 
Sistern, bredern, come along — come along, 
Fo* Ah's g'wine fo' to see ! " 

There were other chants mostly unintelligible, 
but consisting now and then of words strung 
together without reason, or meter, interspersed 
with " Oh, Lawds! " and " Lawd, save us! " all 
to the accompaniment of thumping shoes and 
shaking of heads on the part of the spectators. 
The " meetin' " went on after we had gone, and 
finally the boss had to send a man to repress it. 
But long after I was in bed, there came the fit- 
ful shouts and chants of the black swampers, 
with now and then a rich, deep voice raised in 
some old time melody. 



CHAPTER XII 

DOWN LA FOUECHE IN A " GAZZOLINE '* 

WE left the hospitable swampers of Belle 
River the next afternoon, paddling 
three miles down to Bayou Magazine 
and then off through the woods to Lake Verret. 
It was sundown when we reached this silent and 
beautiful sheet of water which stretched far to 
the West but was not here more than a mile 
wide. We saw a white shell beach directly across 
under the trees and made for it. The lumber- 
men had given us directions which would mark 
the entrance to the new canal connecting Lake 
Verret with Bayou La Fourche which we had 
decided to reach in order to get to the coast at 
Grand Isle. 

We still had it in mind to take up Allesjan- 
dro's offer made two months ago at Clark Che- 

254 



IN A ''GAZZOLINE*' 255 

niere and go visit his master, Baron Gaal at Cut- 
ler's Island, and besides we were beginning to 
feel the heat of the Louisiana summer and 
wanted to smell the cool sea. 

Yet I declare it was with a genuine feeling of 
regret that we set the Bantayan's nose eastward 
and homeward after this footless three months' 
wanderings in the lower coast bayous. It had 
been fine, and that night as we camped on 
the tiny ridge of shell beach along the lake — on 
one side open water and on the other an impass- 
able swamp of gum, cypress, and vine-tangled 
oak whose pools were reflected in the big camp 
fire — Hen and I were silent. It was a great 
camp, and probably our last of the real wilder- 
ness. A storm was winking away over the Gulf 
to the south, and this sheet lightning and the red 
leap of the fire lit up the stirring masses of the 
moss overhanging us, — a scene as weird and 
ghostly as one could imagine, but the great cy- 
press somehow had never daunted us, as we had 
been told it would. 

" Those terrible woods will get on your 



256 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

nerves," someone had assured us in New Or- 
leans, "and fever — and snakes " 

And we had found nothing but beauty in the 
deep swamp, and never a day of fever with all 
our three months of sleeping on the ground or in 
shacks where there was no ground to sleep on. 
And snakes — well they had become a joke. The 
snake dope syringe had never been touched since 
the time we experimented on the nigger from 
Grand Caillou. 

" It's all in the know-how," murmured Hen, 
"and somehow we've learned the know-how. 
Took some hard knocks and some chances, but 
it was worth while — everything. What you go- 
ing to do when you get back into store clothes 
again?" 

" I don't know. I hate to think " 



" So do I. And darned if I will. I'm going 
to roll in!" 

We spent an uneventful day, washing up 
things for the next stage of travel, and went fish- 
ing in the evening. We hooked a soft shell turtle 
and stewed him shell and all — an experiment 



IN A 'GAZZOLINE' 257 

that turned out splendidly, for the shell came out 
as gelatinous lumps, very palatable. 

"And glory be I" murmured Hen — "not an 
egg in him — or her! " 

Hen was always touchy about turtle eggs, 
girls, and romance, as I have remarked before. 

Two shy young chaps came into camp at 
night, having seen our fire. They were lily 
guards employed to keep the hyacinths out of 
the canal up the lake and through them we 
learned it would be no trick at all to get to La 
Fourche in our shallow draft boat. So the next 
morning we went up the lake, turned into a tiny 
channel and paddled twelve miles of beautiful 
going, now in bright sun, now in glittering show- 
ers out of the blue and white sky. The iris and 
hyacinths were all about us, and the blackberries 
overhung the margin with beyond the ever- 
changing forest. But gradually this fell away 
to thin woods, a cleared field now and then, and 
finally we came upon the dredge three miles from 
La Fourche bayou where we had coffee with the 
crew who made us, also, the loan of the inevitable 



258 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

mule cart to tote our outfit over an unfinished 
mile of the cutting. 

From this point we got into the placid La 
Fourche with its ancient and well-kept small 
farms on each side of the levee and we went five 
miles up to Napoleonville where we had, a month 
ago, ordered our mail sent. We had not had a 
letter since we plunged into the Grand Lake 
woods from New Iberia, April 22. To-day was 
May 20. 'Not had we seen a newspaper. In 
fact we had become astonishingly indifferent to 
the world of men. I remember the intense inter- 
est we had acquired in each day's happenings, 
the woodsmen we met, the weather, the grub, the 
water, and the work — but of the outside world 
not a thing! 

Hen failed to get the pack of films he ex- 
pected at Napoleonville. We dined in some state 
for two ragged-shirt, khaki-trousered vaga- 
bonds, at the best restaurant the village afforded 
and then decided — as we felt fine and fit, even 
after our twenty-six miles of paddling that day 
— to go back down La Fourche. Somehow a 



IN A '' GAZZOLINE'' 259 

town didn't look good to us after the glory of 
the swamp. 

We paddled for three hours that night. The 
starlight made the bayou banks wonderful masses 
of shadows lit up by the unending line of wild, 
white roses growing over the old levee. Not a 
house was visible, nor a sound heard, yet over the 
levee we knew almost continual settlement ran 
for sixty miles down La Fourche. We were 
anxious to be out of the "house country," as 
Hen had it. 

It was long after midnight when we left off 
following the stream with its rose-scented air and 
starry shadows, drew the pirogue up the bank, 
laid down our blankets and slept in such peace as 
only out-door men and tired men know. Break- 
fast we had on the grassy levee in the sun, and 
then off to reach Thibidoux at noon. 

This was a quaint, sleepy, ante-bellum town, 
looking like a bit of French New Orleans drop- 
ped down in a smiling country-side. It had the 
same narrow stone " banquettes," closely shut- 
tered first floors to the houses and the ornate 



260 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

galleries above where the people sat in the even- 
ing looking down on the placid street life. A 
guitar tinkled somewhere off in a clematis-hid- 
den veranda and we caught a glimpse of white, 
cool looking girls in doorways and on the streets. 
It was " Assumption Day," and business was 
shut down entirely. There was a " Ball," of 
course, and even we — the ragged strangers — 
were asked by some soft-voiced young men in 
front of the " drugsto'." 

But we had arranged with Captain Fran- 
cisco of an ice boat lying in the bayou to haul us 
down to Lockport, for shame to tell, Hen had 
got suddenly lazy. He said it was stomach ache 
which the waitress at the Thibidoux cafe had 
given him! 

And somehow, after these weeks of paddling 
the Bantayan across rough lakes and treacher- 
ous rivers, it appealed to me. Maybe it was that 
sun 'way down in Louisiany! 

At least, after a night sleeping on the grassy 
levee, face up to the stars, listening to the tinkle 
of the guitars at the ball, we piled our luggage 
on Capt. Francisco's boat before dawn. The 



IN A "GAZZOLINE" 261 

Italian bayou men, mostly oyster fishers up from 
the Caillou and Tambalier camps — were already 
out on the luggars about us. Each had its little 
charcoal brazier fire and breakfast was a-going. 
So was the ball, and with the music we heard the 
Creole girls singing ! Amazing is youth. We had 
slept away their hours. But there was work 
ahead. Francisco's gasoline boat swung off 
from the night-damp wharf, and now the soft 
mists hid the town from sight, a last light twink- 
ling in the ball room, and the pleasant laughter 
coming. 

We could see something of La Fourche 
country from the top of the boat when day came. 
Pepper and oak trees, the eaves and galleries of 
quaint little homes, with roses over their roof 
trees, bits of cane and corn fields, peaceful pas- 
tures with fat cattle grazing, and beyond — ever 
beyond — the grim blue wall of the deep swamp 
out " beyond the forty-arpent line " — the cy-' 
press forest from which we had come. North 
or south as we looked over the strip of planta- 
tions, always the woods were there calling to 
us. 



262 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

The skipper hailed us to breakfast. Capt. 
Francisco could speak no English, but his 
dreamy-eyed seventeen year-old son did the hon- 
ors. Vincenzo was the engineer and had many 
comments to make on other craft we passed. 
Later we came down on a big luggar moored be- 
side the bank, her crew lolling under the red sail 
which was warped over the spar to form an awn- 
ing. Vincenzo hailed them and we laid along- 
side. And to my surprise I saw that the skipper 
was a young Cajun whom we had met over in 
New Iberia, with whom we had dripped many a 
pot of coffee and therefore were blood brothers 
of the road. He was the one of the coterie who 
had loaned his knowledge to the discussion of 
Evangeline and the schoolmaster's drama down 
on Capau's shantyboat under the bridge. 

"What you-all doin' hea'?" he demanded. 
" Yo* sho' ought to be drownded ! " 

" What are you doing here? How did you 
ever get the Little Brunette away over in this 
country? '* 

Octave smiled languidly. 



IN A '' GAZZOLINE" 263 

" Ah came hea' fo' a load of watermelons. 
But dey tell me on La Fourche watermelon 
won't be ripe fo' month yet.'* 

Young Vincenzo laughed gleefully. " Man, 
you goin' to wait a month fo' watermelon? " 

Octo' waved his cigarette. " Ah sho am. Dat 
sou' easter he blow all dis mont', and I couldn't 
get back to Mawgan City nohow." 

Young Vincenzo of the Good Child laughed 
joyously again at young Octo' of the Little 
Brunette. 

" Man, why you no buy a gazzoline? " 

" Ah don't want no gazzoline. Mah girl down 
in Mawgan City say: 'Boy, if yo' put gazzoline 
in dat luggar, Ah neve' ma'y yo' ! ' Gazzoline 
give mah girl a head ache." 

So the Good Child laid along side the Little 
Brunette all the sunny afternoon while we drank 
coffee, ate rice and shrimp, sauce piquante, and 
listened to talk of girls and gazzoline. Octo', it 
appeared, had conceived the brilliant idea, now 
that the oyster season was over at the Teche 
ports, of bringing his red-sailed luggar up La 



264 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Fourche and getting the first load of water- 
melons for the New Orleans markets. So he 
sailed leisurely down the Teche, into the Atcha- 
falaya, out into the Gulf of Mexico, into Tam- 
balier Bay, up Grand Caillou into La Fourche 
until the winds went down on him, when he as 
leisurely tied up to the bank and waited for the 
watermelons to ripen. All the weeks we had 
been fighting across the flooded country to the 
upper La Fourche, he had been peacefully 
coming around by sea. 

Happy, brown-skinned Octo' with his girl, 
and waiting for his watermelons! Octo', idling 
under his red sail, " making breakfast " on his 
charcoal furnace, lying back on the Little Bru- 
nette hatch, cigarette on lip, day after day, wait- 
ing for the watermelons to ripen ! 

After all, maybe Octo' is right. 

But Vincenzo, after the Good Child was off 
down the bayou, looked back at Octo' ; " I sho' 
never sit dat way a month waitin' on a load of 
watermelons. I'd put in a gazzoline and see 
the worl'." 

The " gazzoline " pounded on between the 



IN A " GAZZOLINE" 265 

green, narrow banks, scaring now and then a 
group of yellow-legged geese, a grazing cow, or 
a flock of the dirty, repulsive vultures which are 
so irritatingly tame and fat, they will hardly get 
out of one's path. Here and there a negro 
mammy was washing clothes by the bayou side 
with a catfish line tied to the leg of the stool hold- 
ing her tub. About her the clothes were spread 
on the grass, and the black Egyptian women in 
their red and yellow head-dresses stopped to 
look, and looked as long as the " gazzoline " was 
in sight. I looked back, too, and never did I see 
a catfish bite, nor a wash finished. It was all like 
Octo' and his watermelons. 

Now and then the Good Child tied up to the 
bank, Francisco got ashore to hold the headline 
and over the levee appeared a head or two. A 
leisurely conversation ensued, growing more ex- 
cited, and just when Hen and I were concluding 
that a Black Hand feud was about to be fought 
out between our crew and the villagers, the alter- 
cation would subside — and up over the bank 
would come two men carrying a sack of potatoes. 

This took place so many times that Hen and 



266 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

I finally went ashore to peer over the levee. And 
there, spread before us, was a bit of Arcady 
again! A green-embowered house, the roses 
climbing over the fence along the dusty, bril- 
liant road; and beyond the almond and the um- 
brella trees, the orange and the pomegranate 
bloom, was the ever-smiling land stretching to 
the forest wall dim and blue and far. 

The Arcadians would hear the Good Child 
whistle and would come over the bank to inquire 
the price of potatoes. Captain Francisco would 
quote a price quite one cent under what the Ar- 
cadians insisted they ought to get. Then, at 
once, objurgation, recrimination, lamentation. 
However, it ended invariably with the Arcadi- 
ans lugging a sack of spuds over the bank and 
depositing it on the foredeck of the Black Hand 
ship. Then the Arcadians and the Black Hand- 
ers delivered each themselves of another frevent 
peroration, waved bon soir, and went their ways. 

Sometimes when you're tired of soul, wander 
down La Fourche in the May sunshine and look 



IN A ''GAZZOLINE" 267 

and listen — but do it soon, for we Yankees with 
our reclamation schemes and dredge boats and 
land seekers are fast despoiling Arcady. No 
longer will Octo' face a derisive world waiting a 
month for watermelons. He will have to put in 
a " gazzoline " and give his girl the headache. 

We left the Good Child at La Rose where she 
turned off on her way to New Orleans for that 
cargo of ice, and promptly got another lift on a 
very new boat, the America, owned by a proud 
young Captain, Andreas Tujague. A potato 
boat this time, and running down lower La 
Fourche to the potato country — just where we 
wanted to go and where we didn't want to pad- 
dle. We had become disgracefully recreant I'll 
admit, but canoeing in La Fourche isn't much. 
From the water level you can't see a thing, ex- 
cept buzzards and cows and geese and negro 
wash ladies with catfish lines attached. 

Captain Tujague was mightily proud of his 
wife and babies, his farm and his new potato 
boat. We dined pleasantly with him al fresco. 



268 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

on the forward deck, while his negro hand held 
the wheel, and he informed us he was going 
" down below," and we would Hke it. Hen and 
I said we were willing and would sure like it, be- 
ing adaptable vagrants of fortune. So the new 
stern wheeler America chugged on until the star- 
light came and then on. Our impressions of 
Lower La Fourche were still of neat farm 
homes, small fields of okra, tomatoes, potatoes, 
corn, and melons. No negroes and no lordly 
overseers riding about as in the Teche country, 
but small comfortable home makers, the sort who 
are depicted in Evangeline : 

" Here you will find the Creole, 
And small Acadian planter, 
Who pours forth his heart and his wine 
Together in endless profusion — 
Beautiful the land with its prairies 
And forests of fruit trees; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers; 
And the bluest of heavens 
Bending above and resting its dome on 
The walls of the forest. 
They who dwell here have named it 
The Eden of Louisiana." 



CHAPTER XIII 

PADDLING TO THE GULF ISLANDS 

WE awoke in the hold of the good boat 
America. The young Captain was 
calling down: "Bon jour! Comme 
vous portez vous, M'sieurs? " 

Then there was, of course, some more about 
coffee. 

The America was lying along a willow bank 
over which from the farmstead were coming 
sunbonnetted women. We dressed hastily and 
thanked Captain Andreas for the hospitality of 
the potato hold which had saved us the trouble 
of making camp when the boat tied up last night. 
He had urged us to go to his house, but I rea- 
soned that the place was small and the family 
large and was right. 

269 



270 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

His father and mother, brothers, sisters, 
nephews, all were coming on board to greet the 
strangers and see what the America had brought 
back from the city. 

The men in their light, neatly washed trousers 
and broad sun hats were just from the field. 
They had been hoeing since daylight and had 
now come in for breakfast, after the custom of 
the country. It was by far the most oddly for- 
eign group and environment we had seen in the 
bayou country, or for that matter in Louisiana. 
The neat places, the placid cattle, knee deep in 
the water, the snug air of thrift and prosperity 
made us think of a French peasantry. We had 
coffee with these pleasant folk, few of whom 
could speak English, and then set off down the 
bayou, being anxious to make time before the 
sun grew hot. Five miles below we landed in 
the willows and cooked breakfast. The farm 
country here was fast giving out to willow and 
gum scrub, and the line of forest, which had fol- 
lowed all the way down La Fourche on each 
side three or four miles distant, now straggled 
o^ into mere ragged skeletons. 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 271 

" The big salt marshes I " said Hen, " and the 
sea!" He pointed south where the sun seemed 
shining over hot, level flats of green. " And 
there's a tide here, too! " 

It was indeed setting up the bayou. We 
tasted it and felt as elated as Balboa must have 
done. 

" Hooray! " cried Hen. " Now oysters again 
— and shrimp ! And I'm going to hook a tarpon 
in Caminada Pass. And the old baron who's 
got the big place on the island and gave us the 
bid! Thank j^ou — we'll stay a month!" 

We paddled on, and the banks grew flatter, 
and the little fields with the Cajun women hoe- 
ing gave way to pastures of coarse grass with 
stubby palms and gnarly oak trees growing here 
and there among the water pools. We stopped 
at a palm hut back in one of these groves to 
fill our canvas water bottle, for we didn't know 
just how much fresh water we would find below, 
not having the remotest idea of the sort of land 
it was. The old Malay who offered us his rain 
barrel courteously could speak no English, so 
we went on. Six or eight miles of this desolate 



272 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

country, with the great cypress dwindling out to 
a mere dying forest in the salt prairies, found us 
still working energetically despite the heat. We 
wanted to get somewhere out of it. 

At three o'clock we reached a dismal fishing 
hamlet at the junction of the canal that led to 
Barataria Bay. It was twelve miles from here 
to the open Gulf, and this was the last inhabit- 
able land except a few lonely camps. The idlers 
about the store advised us not to tackle the out- 
side route, and for once we took advice and de- 
cided to strike east through the marshes, cross 
the big bay, and reach Grand Isle. There would 
be no fresh water nor people nor little chance 
for a safe camp, so we best have a care tackling 
the weather in that pirogue. 

Alex Le Fort, the storekeeper and the head 
man of the village, had heard of us from voy- 
ageurs of the Little Lake country. They had 
just a trifle of suspicion in all their courteous- 
ness. Certainly, what were two strangers doing 
poking about all these months through the 
bayous with a camera and taking notes in books, 




We climb above the moss plumes to take an observation, 



DC 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 273 

sleeping on the ground and enduring undoubted 
hardships when they might have traveled — if 
they had to travel — like men of sense? Pleas- 
ure? That was preposterous — there could be no 
pleasure in it! 

However, much as we could read between the 
lines, we were treated, as ever, with the utmost 
good will. On both sides of the bayou at Lee- 
ville were the idle shrimp and fish luggars lying 
along the rude walks that led to the houses. 
Back of this shimmered the illimitable salt 
marshes, with far away a gigantic funnel of 
black smoke where the grass was burning. We 
rested two hours at the store, and then made 
one of our usual late-in-the-day starts up the 
canal to reach Caminada Bay. And we had not 
gone very far into this eight miles of narrow 
waterway, lined on each side with the tall grass 
and mangroves before we found it was suffocat- 
ingly hot. But we dug at it, watching the van- 
ishing point of the canal far ahead. Just what 
sort of camp we would find in the marshes be- 
yond we had no idea. And after some long 



274 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

sweating work I reached back for the canvas 
water bottle and discovered we had at last done 
that utterly inexcusable trick — forgotten to fill 
it! 

Hen and I stopped paddling and looked at 
each other. 

"Fitchered!" said Hen. "We daren't run 
deeper into the marsh without water." 

" But it's some broiling miles back to Le 
Fort's," I retorted. We looked ahead. The 
end of the canal was tantalizingly near — ^not 
more than a mile, we figured. 

" Surely we'll find a camp somewhere." I got 
ashore and tried to stand on the " trembling 
prairie " to look ahead. Nothing in sight but the 
impassable marsh and a glimpse of blue salt 
water to the south. Leeville back on this shin- 
ing thread of canal was merely a smudge of 
darker color on the intolerable glitter of the 
west. 

I wiped the sweat from my eyes. A mosquito 
had sing-songed out of the marsh. I remem- 
bered we were in the dreaded lower La Fourche 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 275 

marshes, from which, when the wind is right, the 
scourge rises to invade all the south coast islands. 

" Hen, if we try to paddle back, the mos- 
quitoes will be on us soon as the sun sets — and 
something bad. I'm pretty thirsty, but let's 
take a chance. When we get to the end of 
the canal we ought to find someone — a luggar 
or a camp." 

But there was no sail in sight — nor a shack 
in all the miles we could see in every direction. 

"Well, dig in," growled Hen; " at the worst 
we can make a dry camp, go without eating, and 
keep going — only when we get into Caminada 
Bay we'll be in big salt water without an idea 
of what direction to steer. But take a chance — 
come on ! " 

So we paddled on more weary miles, with now 
and then a mullet leaping into the pirogue, and 
the shadowy forms of the giant gars moving be- 
fore us in the clear depth. Soon we saw the 
water with no shore beyond, and working stead- 
ily on, we reached it just at sunset. And by 
great luck there was firm land there — a long spit 



276 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

of white shell beach, hardly twelve feet wide, it 
is true, but campable. And as we anxiously 
paddled along this, we saw a pirogue drawn up, 
and then a man — and then a palm shack set back 
in a forlorn clump of mangroves! 

Never did we greet a chap heartier than this 
poor crippled hunter and fisher, who, with his 
wife and four children, w^as making a miserable 
living in this utter solitude. And never did we 
get a kindlier welcome. He had absolutely 
nothing — not even a boat, save his pirogue, and 
his arm and hand were swollen enormously from 
the sting of a ray. He had met this misfortune 
while drawing seine with a Grand Isle company, 
and thereafter had to quit the work. All spring 
his hand had been useless, and his little boys had 
helped him with the hand lines catching the fish 
with which they subsisted. But he offered his 
coffee hospitably, and though water M^as scarce 
in his rain barrels, he filled our bottle. He 
pressed us to eat in his shack, but we put up the 
tent on the shell bank, bought two flounders of 
him for half a dollar — at which he protested that 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 277 

we were cheating ourselves — and cooked our 
own supper. 

Meantime the sun had gone down in the yel- 
low marsh and the mosquitoes arose in clouds. 
We had to abandon supper half-eaten and crawl 
under our bar. We had been troubled little 
with them so far, despite predictions, and this 
vicious assault was a bad taste. In five minutes 
the roar about the tent was like a high-keyed 
machine, and it kept on into the dark for an 
hour. If we lit a candle the sound grew enor- 
mously, for many huge black beetles charged 
into the tent and clung to the bar, diving now 
and then crazily against the wall. 

But we slept well. Leon, the fisher, tapped 
on the tent pole at dawn to ask us in for early 
coffee. And when we were out, another man 
was there — a silent Creole, Andreas Moutin, 
who had a sailing skiff. He had volunteered to 
carry us down Caminada Bay to La Cheniere, 
hearing from Leon that we were trying to reach 
the coast. 

And a good tiling, too, for a southwest breeze 



278 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

was kicking Caminada Bay to a smother of 
whitecaps. We couldn't have set the Bantayan 
into it for a mile. Hen protested a bit, as pride 
was beginning to hurt him at being carried along 
so much. But canoeing was impossible that day, 
so at nine we set off with the smiling Andreas 
in his cat-rigged skiff. We skirted long, marshy 
points and cut across deep bays, the skiff holding 
up well in the choppy sea. It was noon when 
we reached the lower end of La Cheniere Cami- 
nada — that lonely and forsaken island of the 
dead. Not even yet, after twenty years, have 
the south coast folk ventured back to it — the 
memory of the hurricane which hurled its homes 
and ships and very soil along with a thousand 
people into the raging Gulf is still on their 
souls. 

La Cheniere, in the old days, was the chief 
and liveliest settlement of the south coast — gay 
and lawless and unheeding. To-day there are 
but four inhabited houses scattered about among 
the storm-twisted oaks and mangroves, and its 
once fine beach is a ghastly reminder — riven and 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 279 

torn and jagged, the sea here and there running 
up among the trees, washing the sand from their 
roots, which shine dead and spectral in the sun- 
light. Back of the houses is the marsh with its 
pools unstirred by anything but sea birds, though 
now and then you see in these pools the scat- 
tered bricks and foundations of a house. The 
stark, unpainted church of La Cheniere stands 
in the wrecked burying ground, unused, its floor 
bellied up, its foundations sunken, just as the 
Gulf storm left it. I do not know of such a 
scene of melancholy ruin anywhere as is La 
Cheniere Caminada. 

We did not go up far in the depressing island. 
Skipper Andreas landed us on the lower point 
and lifted a hand to show the way to Grand 
Isle. It was a dim blue smudge of trees far to 
the east. The nearer end of it was a mere spit 
of shining sand and over this was the Gulf of 
Mexico. Once far in Caminada Pass we saw 
the gleam of a breaker. That was what we 
wanted — the sea! 

Andreas stayed with us for breakfast — or 



280 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

rather we with him, for it was Andreas who 
made the jambelat/a of oysters, ham, rice, and 
crabs which Hen speared around in the shallows. 
I made the biscuit. There wasn't much conver- 
sation but many smiles and gesticulations. An- 
dreas didn't know a word of English. But that 
was a famous breakfast. Onl}^ I must tell you 
what Hen relates with gusto — how I bragged 
so inordinately of my biscuit and Andreas, with 
many gestures, assisted at the apotheosis of the 
biscuit — but didn't eat any — and then, how, 
when we reached Grand Isle later and men- 
tioned our kind host, Andreas, we discovered 
that he was once the most famous baker of all 
the region round about! 

But I draw the curtain. It is bad taste to tell 
a joke on one's self. 

So a hot Sunday noon, after a swim in the salt 
water, we paddled leisurely across the roadstead 
of ancient Caminada to Grand Isle. The long 
sand reef ahead protected us from the rough- 
ness, so the Bantayan had no fear. Once in a 
while a little sea jogged up over her rubber cloth 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 281 

covering, but after the Atchafalaya lakes this 
was nothing. 

We saw a luggar lying a mile below and 
headed for it. Under the shade of its gunwale 
we talked with the lazy crew. They had been 
hauling seine and of course we had to drink cof- 
fee with them. We had got so used to drinking 
coffee with every man we met under all circum- 
stances, that now we could squat in the shade of 
a sailcloth or mangrove bush, stir in the canned 
milk, and gesticulate in the coast patois with 
any of them. 

Hen told the Filipino-Creole crew that he was 
going to hook a tarpon. At once there was an 
excited protest. They declared we had better 
let the tarpon alone. No one ever thought of 
catching tarpon. They were no good, and they 
were dangerous. They related wild tales of 
malevolent tarpon jumping up in the air and 
coming down on unprotected boats just for 
devilment. If once you made a tarpon mad he 
would lie awake nights thinking of some way 
to " do " you. 



282 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

No — no, the fishers protested — we must not 
bother the tarpon ! Anyhow, what earthly sport 
was it to catch a fish? Nothing but hard, wet 
drudgery, and there was hardly a living in it. 

As to a good time, one had better go to the 
" ball " this evenin' if one wanted a good time. 
One brown-armed, eager fellow pointed — just 
paddle that way a mile or so and we would 
come to the terrapin factory, and then in the 
cheniere we would find Ludwig's store and back 
of that the " ball." He thought they would have 
good music, too, for the Hazel boat was in. 

"The Hazel boat!" Well, well— we had 
found an old friend of three months ago up in 
Barataria! 

Hen and I felt as though we were nearing 
home — though where was home for Hen and 
me? 

So we indulgently refrained from talking 
tarpon to men who manifestly saw nothing in 
it but imbecility. We did paddle on, and the 
crew waved us away with many protestations of 
friendship, sajdng they would surely see us at 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 283 

the ball. Above the low green oaks of Grand 
Isle we saw, now and then, a red roof. Out in 
the roadstead a huge old shed hung over the 
water; and to piles driven here and there were 
idle luggars, skiffs, and gasoline boats. We 
could hear the boom of the surf now over the 
oak groves which ran up the backbone of the 
nine-mile island. It was hardly more than 
half a mile wide, nor more than four feet above 
the sea. One could understand how the West 
Indian hurricanes, when they strike the Gulf 
coast, drive the waters far and deep over the 
helpless hamlets. 

We walked a quarter mile on a good shell 
road to reach Ludwig's store. It was in a yard 
behind thick fig trees and on its broad gallerie 
sat a comfortable, gray-haired woman, who 
greeted us with a soft "^ Bon soir, M'sieurs." 

Then we met her son, the leading merchant 
and factor of the island — portly, dignified, with 
the air and moustachios of a prosperous Cuban 
planter. We explained that we had just landed 
and wanted dinner. Certainly, M'sieurs, there 



284 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

must be a place where dinner could be had! 
Certainly they would look, although there was 
no hotel now since the great storm of '93. Then 
along came a little, animated, dark-skinned man 
who was introduced to us as the constable, and 
acquainted with our desires. He was at once 
seized with pleasurable emotions — certainly, 
M'sieurs, dinner must be found! 

He went out on the gallerie and there was a 
consultation. Another wide-hatted and leisurely 
citizen joined the group; a barefooted fisherman 
from the fig tree shade added a word. More 
consultation, animation, gesticulation. It grew 
warm, with many pointings off and lookings 
back at us, shakings of head and protests. And 
never a word could hungry Hen and I make 
of it. 

Then the little constable approached with the 
air of a diplomat. M'sieu Ludwig had pro- 
posed that we be escorted to Madame Naccari's, 
where was served a most famous dinner in the 
summer when a few strangers visited the isle. 
But he — well, there was a question? 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 285 

Had the Honorable Strangers coats? 

Coats? No, the honorable but hungry 
strangers had no coats. There was no room for 
coats when traveling in a pirogue. 

The Honorable Constable sighed. Ah, no 
coats! That was unfortunate — no coats. At 
Madame Naccari's famous sea food dinner, 
gentlemen wore coats. He was not sure — alas! 
It was a delicate subject — but would we mind 
if 

" Eat! " said Hen. " We don't care a d 



pardonne, M'sieu — we don't care where we eat 
or how or what — only eat. We're too tired to 
set up camp." 

Exactly. They all sympathized. But, ah — 
no coats! 

Then a brilliant idea. He would take us to 
Doctor Seay's. He was un Americaine; he would 
understand. He would welcome strangers from 
the North, coats or not. 

" Lead off," murmured Hen. " As I said, we 
don't care a " 

We went out, following the little constable, 



286 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

who was now all smiles and fervent explana- 
tions. Welcome to Isle Grande! Welcome to 
the City! The strangers forever! Hooray! 

So we interpreted public feeling, now that the 

delicate issue was sidestepped. The crooked, 

narrow path leading from Ludwig's fig-shaded 

store to the Doctor's was girt on one side by 

gray-green sea marshes with tidal pools here and 

there in which the fiddler crabs climbed in and 

out away from our feet and the mullet leaped; 

and on the other by tumble-down fences choked 

and hidden by roses and oleanders and Spanish 

bayonet and palms. A rough, up-and-down, 

damp little path, but the only way one can 

travel east and west on Grand Isle unless one 

walks on the outer sea beach or goes through 

one's neighbor's gardens. Which is what ©ne 

mostly does. 

Grand Isle is a unique municipality in that 
respect — it is one hundred and fifty j^ears old, 
but in all that time it has never occurred to the 
natives to build a street. So there is no street — 
not one. Between the shaded gardens and neat, 



PADDLING TO GULF ISLANDS 287 

miniature fields are narrow lanes, but so narrow 
that two of the high-wheeled carts, which are the 
only means of carriage, can hardly pass. And 
these only run from " beach to bay " across the 
isle! Lengthwise there are no streets whatever. 
As I said, when you shop on Grand Isle, you 
pass into your neighbor's lot, meander among 
the oaks and oleanders to another stile, through 
it and another until you come to the " sto'." 

Well, we meandered down the bay path, 
turned into a lane, into a lot and were proudly 
introduced to Dr. Seay. We were hospitably 
received, and the vivacious young daughter of 
the house fitted us out with oysters and maca- 
roni. Then we idled and discussed Grand Isle 
and our adventures until the heat of the day 
was broken, when the Doctor hitched up his cart 
and transported all our luggage to the outer 
beach. There, within a hundred yards of the 
tumbling surf, we put up the little silk tent 
among the gorgeous oleander bloom. Then we 
rested and watched the great round moon draw 
up from the sea — soft and benignantly shining 



288 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

as were the airs blown over the water. Some- 
where back in the quiet gardens we heard the 
music of the Sunday evening ball. It was fine. 
We sat before the tent, listening to the surf on 
the yellow sands before us, watched the moon- 
path on the water, felt that soft breeze up from 
Yucatan six hundred miles due south, and voted 
old, tumble-down, carefree Grand Isle the place 
we had been looking for. 

** I don't care if I never go home," murmured 
Hen — and went to sleep there on the spot all 
night, without taking the trouble to go to bed. 

What sleeps! And eats! Even if a chap had 
injured his social standing by paddling around 
the wilderness with no coat. 



CHAPTER XIV 

MORE BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 

NEXT day we wandered about and had 
breakfast and much further information 
at the Doctor's. He was a New Orleans 
physician who had come down to the south coast 
islands years ago for his health, though the is- 
landers were too healthy to make a good living. 
However, the Doctor gardened, as did all the 
neighbors, and the amount of stuff that can be 
taken off these tiny two-acre farms of Grand 
Isle is amazing. In the early spring, cucum- 
bers; in the fall, cauliflower; and both the earli- 
est raised in the United States and shipped 
principally to Chicago markets for distribution. 
Between croppings, the islanders fish and trap, 
and nearly every truck-gardener has his " seine 
share " in one of the luggars. 

289 



290 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

In the evening I drove with Doctor Seay in 
his pony cart up and down the nine-mile curve 
of beach with the surf racing under the wheels. 
At either end the oak cheniere dwindled away to 
mere sandy reaches with a few dead trees slant- 
ing northward as the storms had left them. At 
the east end of the island is Grande Terre Pass, 
and at the other Caminada, and from these out- 
lets the tides rush fiercely, draining all the vast 
inland of swamps and lakes reaching from the 
river to the Gulf. This and Grand Terre Island 
are still romantically entwined with the feats of 
Jean La Fitte, whose pirate ships took refuge 
here from raids on the Caribbean; and where^ 
later, the slave ships fled when the British and 
Yankee sloops-of-war tried to break up the 
traffic. Here, as in all treasure-haunted Bara- 
taria, the tales still linger of La Fitte's hidden 
gold and of the days when cargoes of African 
savages were thrown to the sharks in the back 
bayous rather than have them captured by the 
authorities. 

The ancient landing place, the foundations of 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 291 

the house, and the old round tower or cistern of 
bricks at Rigaud's landing on the bay shore are 
given a date of 1780 in local legend, which is 
years before Pierre and Jean La Fitte, the gen- 
tleman adventurers, fled from France to lend 
their dubious fortunes to the thrifty Creole 
smuggler-traders of New Orleans, by their ex- 
ploits in the Spanish Main. 

Hen and I grew highly interested. It is true 
that to-day but few of the old pirate remains are 
here. The fort on Grand Terre, where Jean 
long defied the puny Republic of Madison's day 
to take him, and from which he, at length, led a 
thousand buccaneers to the defense of New Or- 
leans on Andrew Jackson's promise of amnesty, 
has long since been engulfed by the waves. But 
there are a few old families about whom legends 
cluster — the Rigauds and Chigazolas — as being 
descended from the adventurers of La Fitte, 
though now these are the usual kindly, courteous 
islanders we met everywhere. Hen and I went 
to the west end of the island in quest of this 
ancient stock and came upon our buccaneers 



292 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

peacefully sorting cucumbers under the oak 
shade instead of slitting windpipes or relating 
hairbreadth 'scapes. 

We sat down to listen to the soft Creole 
patois. And in no time shy boys were bringing 
gifts — garden stuff and berries, and were saying 
that they had heard of us! The schoolteacher 
had told them about two Yankees she had seen 
almost four months ago starting from Barataria 
with a pirogue and a silk tent, headed for Grand 
Island — and where had we been all this time? 

That was flattering. To have these strangers 
interested in our wanderings. We were quite 
celebrated at once, and began relating Homeric 
tales — and inquiring about the fishing. 

Not that I cared a rap about fishing. Hen 
went off the next morning vowing he would 
have, at last, some real use for all that silver- 
tipped and jointed plunder of his, but I idled 
about the oak grove gardens and the sto's and 
the galleries. We had had a splendid dip in 
the surf before breakfast, much to the astonish- 
ment of the islanders, who never went in the 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 293 

sea until July unless they fell in. But the bath- 
ing was great. Some unfortunate day Grand 
Isle will be discovered and muddled over with 
hotels and tourists, and its warm, gentle surf all 
cluttered up with summer girls. May Hen not 
be there to see. Or I either ! The charm of that 
dolce far niente is still with me. 

From the Doctor's daughter and her friends 
who gathered each evening on her gallerie we 
learned a bit of Grand Isle's curious social con- 
dition. It apparently is one place in the South 
where the color line is not drawn sharply. 
There were not a great many families of pure 
white blood, and the " mixed " people were far 
wealthier and more influential. There are four 
" sets," as they had it. The whites, the " light 
mixed," " dark mixed," and " just nigger," 
though there are few blacks. Now, though all 
get on in the days' work with the most amicable 
neighborliness, when it comes to " pawties " and 
" balls " they had to have a care. The white 
girls, being very few, had no real ball ; but their 
brothers, with more license, could go to the 



294 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

" light mixed '* or '' cafi au lait " ball. But 
none of the light mixed people would attend a 
" dark mixed " or " cafi noir '' festivity, and of 
course the "just nigger" was excluded from 
all of them. 

The perpetual amiable gossip of the island 
was the intermarryings of the various layers. 
The light-mixed people, being the richer and 
the real land-owning class, had a school of their 
own, because they would not send the children 
to the larger school where the " cafe noirs " 
could go also, and were debarred from the real 
white class, who attempted to have a school also 
privately maintained. As there were not four 
hundred people in the entire community, the 
" schools " were not flourishing institutions ; but 
the funny thing of it was, with this pretense of 
class exclusiveness, the entire neighborly amica- 
bility that enwrapped the whole island. 

They had no jail. They had no church. I 
asked the official what was done when there was 
trouble. He related an exciting story. 

" Wan time der was a Manilaman named 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 295 

Jose. Wan time dis Jose he coom here and 
feesh, and he drink wine. Eheu! Dat red wine 
he drink! I put dat Jose on a feesh boat wan 
time when he drink too much red wine, and he 
went away — I dun-no." 

The higher Hfe had an even more agitating 
legend. Once there was a church. It seemed 
that a priest came to the island and got every- 
one to help build the church. Everyone did, and 
jvhen the church was up the happy islanders dis- 
covered how the uplift had brought the serpent 
into Eden. Who was to worship in the church? 
White, " light mixed," " dark mixed," or "just 
nigger " ? 

It was the happy isle's one legend of general 
contention. They wrangled and raged and no 
one could make head or tail of the controversy, 
until finally some unknown Solomon settled the 
matter by burning the church down one night. 
Again peace reigned, and never since has Grand 
Isle bothered its head about religion. 

Wealth, too, seemed to lose its distinction 
here. Everyone on the island worked — easily. 



296 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

independently, buoyantly, and made a living. 
The richest man on the island, except John Liid- 
wig, the terrapin king, was one who owned ten 
beach shore lots. But everyone worked, either 
at the " cues " or the fishing or in the " sto's." 
Grand Isle will make a fine study for some econ- 
omist, bad luck to him, 

Ludwig's terrapin farm was a collection of 
sheds out on the bay shore marshes, and in it 
were six thousand small diamond backed turtles. 
The terrapin king bought every terrapin that 
the hunters brought to him, held them in his 
shed and shipped them North by boat and rail 
whenever an order came. The business made 
him wealthy, even as the outside world rates 
wealth. Terrapin occasionally bring him forty 
dollars a dozen and he pays about a dollar 
apiece. Ludwig — Creole, for all his German 
name — was an intelligent and courteous man. 
He had outside correspondents in business, and 
had been to New York and Philadelphia. To 
his store, the principal one on the island, came 
most of the inhabitants for advice, and when the 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 297 

fishing was bad or the crop poor, the general 
patrone carried them through the season on his 
books. And he lost little. People were honest, 
he told me. 

At Ludwig's store was the only bar. But it 
had none of the character of a saloon. No 
loafers were about it; no barkeeper either. If 
one wanted a drink the proprietor or one of the 
boys in the store passed into the annex, served 
you, and came out. Or, if busy, they told you 
to help yourself and pay out in the store. More 
than likely half-a-dozen handsome children were 
playing " keep house " or something of the kind 
in the barroom, and no man would be in it all 
da}'^ long. 

There were four more stores on the island, 
each set back in its own shady grove and hedged 
about with magnolia, oleander, and roses. If 
one went from Ludwig's to Adams's or Nac- 
cari's stores one went over stiles and through 
gates on a veritable lover's path, winding in and 
out with no pretense of street or sidewalk. The 
Arcadian simplicity of Grand Isle was refresh- 



298 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

ing, as fine as the hospitality of its people. 

Hen and I bathed of mornings in that surf, 
idled, smoked, wandered, sat on the galleries, 
talked boats and fishing, storms and cucumbers, 
all of a week ere we knew it had gone. Once 
we mentioned that we really ought to be going 
and there was a kindly murmur of dissent. Go? 
Why we had only just come! Besides, Satur- 
day the Hazel boat came back and there would 
be a ball Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday 
night. Sunday all the bayou boat men would 
be in, and the seine crews and the island would 
give itself to gayety. So we agreed to stay, not 
having any particular place to go. 

We had enjoyed the beach camp. For ten 
days the southwest breeze blew off the Gulf, 
night and day, and our little silk tent bellied 
out like a paper bag. We slept without bars, 
which was remarkable at this season of the year, 
for the sea wind kept every mosquito away. It 
is the occasional west winds that bring the 
scourge off La Fourche marshes — I have visited 
Grand Isle since when they were intolerable for 
a time. 



BALLS. GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 299 

We heard a good deal about the two balls on 
Saturday night. Our fair young friends who 
radiated about the Doctor's were, of course, 
going to their own ball; but some of the young 
chaps privately informed us that there would be 
cake and sherbet and the prettiest girls at the 
other. 

Hen and I determined we would see both. 
And when we went we were totally unable to 
see any difference in the quiet, fun-loving folk 
at the two pavilions. There were not a dozen 
young people at the white ball; but we did the 
honors and then slipped away through the moon- 
light to the other, stopping at the sto' for a 
measure of wine and a word with the elders 
grouped about on the gallerie benches. There 
was always laughter, gentle badinage in the soft 
patois, and room for a friend. A j^oung fellow 
was telling of the " fit " that Unc' Henri had 
in the *' cue " patch that " evening." A pretty 
young girl had come out of the house to hold 
ammonia to his nose ; and thereat the young men 
workers begged their employer for half an hour 
off that they might each have a fit and be min- 



300 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

istered to by the pretty daughter. Unc' Henri, 
a white-bearded patriarch, now quite recovered, 
sat among them and enjoyed the banter much 
as anyone. 

The ballroom was a long pavilion open on 
every side and with oleanders and roses hanging 
in over the gallerie railing, rough, unpainted, lit 
by side lamps hung here and there. At one end 
was the " music," an accordeon and a fiddle, and 
around the floor waltzed dreamily the youth and 
beauty of Grand Isle. 

We were heartily welcomed. We could sit in 
the " grape arbeh," or we could dance. And 
there would be sherbet and cake and also gumbo. 
Did we think it was too warm a night for 
gumbo ? 

Never. It was a fine night for anything. 
Even Hen warmed up as he saw the little girls 
in white with the orange blossoms in their hair 
waltzing about the old floor. All of the 
family giving the ball were busied. M'sieu 
was deftly shaving one guest in an ante-room, 
Madame was stirring the gumbo, the children 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 301 

were in ecstasies over the sherbet — it was sho' a 
grand ball. 

But my friend, Hen, was in trouble again. 
He wanted to dance! And he had encountered 
the constable, who was the stickler for proprie- 
ties on Grand Island. And Hen had no coat. 
And holes in his flannel shirt. The constable 
explained that he had just come from our camp. 
*' I told mail wife I sho' was goin' to pass by 
dat camp and escort dem gentlemen to dat ball. 
Eheu! And dem gentlemen didn't wait fo' me ! " 

Horrible ! We had made another social break 
by not waiting to be escorted by the constable. 

But Hen wanted to dance. He told the con- 
stable very touchingly that he had no coat. They 
nearly wept together. And the next I knew 
Hen was doing twosteps around that floor in a 
blue coat with brass buttons which he had bor- 
rowed from a lonely, callow militiaman who had 
come down from New Orleans on the Hazel 
boat, and, at a safe distance, had been bedazzling 
the eyes of the island girls with all this glory. 
On what pretext Hen got his coat I do not 



302 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

know, but my fellow voyager was now romping 
around the hall with a very short girl, grimacing 
over her shoulder. Hen did not like girls — ^not 
a bit! 

The anxious militiaman stood about, dangling 
his hat and wondering. When the dance was 
done, Hen got another girl. Then another, and 
another. He was having the time of his bright 
young life, hair or no hair — and all the time the 
despoiled soldier stood about trying to get up 
courage to ask Hen for the return of his coat. 
The girls fell to laughing as we sat out on the 
gallerie. Hen had made a great hit. 

We stayed at the ball until midnight. It was 
very fine out on the gallerie, the flower-decked 
girls, the moonlight, the odors of the south and 
the boom of the surf on the island sands, and the 
droning music. In the shadows some fellow 
played a guitar, and the entire assemblage was 
low-voiced and gentle, with no boisterousness 
nor drinking nor a jarring note. We liked the 
ball immensely, and went away to camp satis- 
fied. 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 303 

Sunday morning we idled at the sto' watching 
the cocks fight in the yards and the mule carts 
creak in from the bay shore whpre a gas boat 
was being unloaded. The anchorage was so 
shallow that the boats could not come close in, 
so at low tide the mule carts were driven out 
to the lighters and the freight loaded in them. 
Another line of half a dozen carts was ambling 
out of the narrow, shady lanes loaded with cu- 
cumbers to go, the next day, to New Orleans 
and the North. 

The Sunday idlers on the gallerie watched the 
work with languid comments. I asked them 
why a wharf had never been built to do away 
with this laborious lightering, and they seemed 
astonished. We found that Grand Islanders had 
a pleasing faith that some day a railroad would 
fmd its way down the leagues of swamp forest 
and salt marsh to the coast, a great hotel would 
be built, and their fortunes would be made. Not 
a man would sell an arpent of land. They could 
sit on the gallerie and dream of their long, beau- 
tiful beach cleaned and gay with winter visitors, 



304 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the oak groves and oleander lined lanes set with 
modern cottages, and the thrifty folk amassing 
money from their ancient holdings. This pleas- 
ant mood of the lotus eaters we found among 
them all. They were absolutely the happiest 
people it has ever been my fortune to see. 

Hen and I took a long walk down the island 
Sunday, and when we came back to camp, three 
dark-eyed girls — with the inevitable flowers in 
their hair and dressed in white from tip to toe — 
were there to invite us to another ball. Said 
Madamoiselle Alirte: " They'll be mo' ice cream 
to-day, and I was just passin' to tell you-all." 

But we had accepted an invitation to our Doc- 
tor's to drive and to play checkers, which I did — 
on his operating table, of which he said: " Been 
sixty-four operations on this and only one 
death." But he beat me four games straight. 
Then we took our usual spin up the white beach, 
and the Doctor told of many adventures while 
going on calls to far distant islands and cheri' 
teres, the seas rising over the sands as he drove, 
and of storm-lashed boat-men waiting to fetch 




o 

Oh 



'Of) 

5 



BALLS, GIRLS, AND LEGENDS 305 

him across to attend injured men of the camps. 
But he liked it all — the freedom and the bigness. 
He told us the celebrated story of the light- 
house keeper at Grand Tcrre who went to the 
city and married a widow and six children and 
brought her down to the coast. The widow and 
her children stayed two weeks pleasantly enough 
and then went back to the city, informing the 
lovelorn husband that they guessed they had had 
a pretty good time and it was best to go — it was 
the first time in twelve years the widow had 
been able to take the family on a vacation, and 
she thanked him very much ! 



CHAPTER XV 

ON THE baron's ISLAND 

WE did not attend the ball that night. 
Well enough, for the next morning 
Miss Alirte " passed " our way to tell 
us that all the guests had gone home at nine 
o'clock in disgust. The music was " broke." 
The accordeon man couldn't fix it either, he de- 
clared. But all the island girls had a deep sus- 
picion that the accordeon man broke his music 
purposely, being tired from playing all night 
and day, and besides he had collected all the 
boys' money, anyhow. The music that " broke " 
so inauspiciously furnished gossip for a week. 

We concluded to get away from Grand Isle 
that day, or else it would hold us forever. Be- 
sides, up the Bay, somewhere was Allesjandro 
and his mysterious island of the Baron. We 
must be off. So Hen and I made a round of 
ceremony to all the sto's and the cucumber pickr 
ers saying good-by and sailed away on the stern- 

306 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 307 

wheel gas boat, F, S^ J., Captain Fabre Adam 
commanding. 

It was a stormy morning that dawned on' 
Barataria Bay, and when we had made the run 
to a lonely shrimp platform at Grand Bank and 
then turned northward, the wind and rain buried 
us again in darkness. So we saw Uttle of Grand 
Terre and its lighthouse on the rampart of the 
ruined fort — that uninhabited isle, once the 
refuge of La Fitte, and now lashed by wind and 
eaten by waves to a crumbling waste. Then out 
of the storm would break the brilliant sun and 
we would see the far, drenched marshes shining 
and the fierce, broken seas in the passes; and 
then again a whirl of rain and wind would strike 
us. It is a coast of smiles and tears, perilous 
whims and tragic moods, and went fitly with 
tales of buccaneering. 

Fabre Adam landed our outfit on the plat- 
form at Manila Village with some difficulty in 
the pounding seas. Then the F. 8^ J. veered 
off in the storm, leaving us gazing about from 
the shed at a curious colony. The wooden 



308 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

shrimp platform was a full acre in extent and 
around its margins were built the houses of the 
fishers. But under the entire village the waves 
rolled and crashed through the salt marsh. Not 
a bit of land was above the high tides. And 
while we stood looking somewhat blankly about, 
a man came hurrying down through the rain 
with his hand out to the strangers. He wel- 
comed us up to the store which supplied the 
seine crews of the shrimp company. And a cap- 
ital good fellow he proved to be in the three days 
that gale lasted, and Hen and I were his en- 
forced guests at Manila. 

Charley Grand jean, one time of the South 
African Mounted Infantry, globe-trotter, sol- 
dier of misfortune, and raconteur, was also a 
great cook. We were rousingly welcomed by 
the little group of men marooned at Manila. It 
was between seasons when there was nothing to 
do but mend seines, paint boats, and take care 
of camp. There were Charley, the cook, and 
" Scotty," one time Grand jean's fellow soldier 
in the Boer War; " Portyghee Joe," the store 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 309 

man; Charley Stein, a one-time German sailor, 
now looking after the oyster-beds — along with a 
Malay, Italian, and Chinese half-breed or two — 
all eager to learn something from outside and 
eager to outdo each other in greeting the 
strangers. Also there were Grand jean's pets — 
" Nig," " Happy," and " Rabbit," the cats; and 
six grotesque young pelicans waddling about the 
platform. Also a mongrel dog or two. Two or 
three times a week some boat stopped at the plat- 
form, otherwise the stilt-dwellers were quite cut 
off from the earth. 

They fed us well and told us wondrous tales; 
of the sharks and stingrays and the alligator 
hunting; of the September storms when the seas 
had had them clinging by their teeth to the frail 
supports ; of the " big drunk fights " on the plat- 
forms after pay-days when the fishing was good, 
and it was every one for himself without law of 
man or God; of Grand jean's tramp across India 
after he left the English service and was trying 
to get home. They were a curious lot ; when you 
inquire delicately why this man or that is down 



310 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

in the shrimp camp, he may shrug his shoulders 
enigmatically. There are a great many reasons. 
Life was a gamble there, and as long as the 
world goes around men will love to gamble. 
Grand jean said he was discontented anywhere 
else. It was big and still and free and a man 
could be a man among men. 

Sometimes the seine crews made big money — 
and the next month, after a visit to the city and 
wine and woman and song, they were broke and 
in debt to the store and had to stay to work it 
out. And down river to the Barataria swamps 
— " the Free State " — come many men who 
leave their country for their country's good; 
and from the ships of the nations at New Or- 
leans' wharves come deserters of all the seas 
eager for the New World's freedom. 

Thursday, June third, the sou'easter swung 
west and the next day was clean and clear to 
the far line of the Gulf, and north to the illim- 
itable marshes. We got away from our friends, 
paddling again, and it was good to feel the old 
Bantayan dig forward under our hands. We 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 311 

had got tolerable directions as to reaching Cut- 
ler's Island, but in an hour the grassy-banked 
bayou we were to follow through the marsh 
spread into immense channels threading this 
way and that, a mile or so wide at every point, 
with a smart breeze kicking up the whitecaps. 
And from the water level we could not see the 
cheniere that would mark Cutler's when we got 
out of the marsh. But we took what we thought 
was Bayou St. Denis and stuck at it all the 
afternoon. 

And finally, rounding one of the marsh points 
that thrust out of the vast, impassable " trem- 
bling prairies," we saw a far oak grove over a 
beach of shining shell;?. 

" The Baron's ! " yelled Hen. " And I see the 
yacht riding off the cove. And the old Filipino 
— maybe he won't be surprised!" 

We crawled on slowly along the marsh shore. 
It was almost sundown, with the fiery globe 
hanging squarely over the bit of land and all 
the wet prairies round about turned to amazing 
colors of purple and yellow, when we drew up 



312 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

to the sloop. A little man was bending over 
some task on the after deck and he did not see 
us until we yelled: 

"Hello, Allesjandro!" 

Then he turned: "^ Que tal, Senores!" 

He rushed to give us a hand. His delight 
couldn't have been greater if we had been long- 
lost brothers, and his pride, when he had landed 
us on the shell beach and escorted us up to the 
baronial hall, was touching. He tapped us on 
the back, he bowed and gestured and explained 
in Spanish and French and Malay, I reckon — 
and all the other polyglot tongues of the south 
coast. 

Remember us? Ah, could the distinguished 
Senores doubt him? Almost four months they 
had waited for the distinguished Sefiores who 
could make such amazing flapjacks as he, Alles- 
jandro, had witnessed at Clark's cheniere! And 
a tent made of silk that would fold up no bigger 
than one's hat; and a picture machine, a won- 
drous fishing rod all pretty with silver gim- 
cracks; and duffles and piffles and whatnot — 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 313 

who would ever forget the distinguished 
Seiiores? 

The Baron stood waving his long-stemmed 
meerschaum with dignity while his major-domo 
spluttered the introduction. Welcome — thrice, 
fifty times, welcome ! 

Seats for the Sefiores on the gallerie and cof- 
fee pronto! You bet. The Sefiores never re- 
fused anything. They met also the Baron's 
young wife and a pretty little guest down from 
N'Awlyins. 

We were seated, and the Baron explained that 
he had heard of us, most certainly. We were 
now back within ten miles of Clark's Cheniere, 
w^here we bought the Bantayan last April and 
started back-tracking from Florida and the 
Fountain of Youth. 

And did we have a good time? Great! And 
did we like the people? Splendidly! And the 
grub? Wow! And the mosquitoes? By Jimmy 
— no! No one could love a mosquito! 

We were told we had better go down the beach 
to the palm hut and rig our bars before the mos- 



314 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

quitoes came. Cutler's was bad for them in 
June time. So we went down the white, clean 
beach under the oaks and palm scrub and hung 
our bar over the bunk. Then we went back to 
the tiny home among the oak trees and china 
berries and had dinner on the screened gallerie. 
After sundown the mosquitoes came off the 
marshes back of us, a voracious horde. 

We dined with laughter and merriment, the 
Baron, portly and beaming, at the head of the 
table, his wife across; little Miss Lincoln and 
Allesjandro on one side, and Hen and I on the 
other. 

The Baron told of his youth at a military 
school at Buda-Pesth; and how, later, he wan- 
dered about Europe, and when the Civil War 
came on in America, crossed the ocean as a soldier 
of fortune and entered the Confederate service 
in a Florida regiment with the rank of captain. 
When the cause was lost he came to New Or- 
leans and made a fortune in some capacity with 
the old Louisiana lottery company. And then 
he lost most of it and retired, to buy Cutler's 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 315 

Island down on the lonely coast and come here 
to live with his American wife, his sloop Liberty , 
and his man Friday, Allesjandro. 

No one came to see him any more except wan- 
derers off the face of the waters like ourselves, 
and his Cajun-Filipino neighbors from far 
camps in the chenieres scattered over the great 
marshes. He was greatly pleased to put us up. 
Allesjandro must help us store our stuff and we 
could stay a month — a year — always — quien 
sahe? 

It was pleasant. Here was the rich garden 
back of the house where Allesjandro raised corn, 
potatoes, okra, tomatoes, melons, everything. 
There in front of the beach lay his famous oys- 
ters. All about the luscious crabs crawled to be 
taken. Shrimp and fish were at one's hand ; and 
in the winter ducks and a deer to be fetched out 
of the swamp beyond Bayou Dupont. God was 
good — did we ever see such sunshine, such fine 
air off the blue Gulf as he had here? 

We dined excellently on crabs, rice, lettuce, 
and hegung. 



316 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Begung was raw trout eggs in vinegar and 
spices — a dish that Allesjandro brought from 
his Asiatic home. And good. When it was over 
we talked and smoked and Hstened to the roar 
of the mosquitoes outside the screen gallerie. It 
was terrific. The night was still and warm, just 
the night for mosquitoes and the screens were 
gray with them. And when one got in you 
would hear a slap and a word and a scratch. 

We did not leave the house until ten, for after 
that the mosquitoes cease their ragings largely. 
Then we walked down the moonlit shell beach 
and turned in under our own bars to listen to 
the rustle of the chameleons, and maybe a snake 
or two, in the dry walls of our palm hut. 

We awoke to have a swim in the waters of 
the cove. A most glorious morning, and the 
appetite we took up to the Baron's table pleased 
everyone. Fried oysters and rolls and coffee. 
Then another day of sheer idleness, I'll confess. 
No, we inspected the neat garden back of the 
oaks, tonged some oysters for a gumbo, listened 
to Esther Lincoln's soft- voiced drawl as she told 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 317 

of her N'Awlyins school, and the Baron's mis- 
chievous reminiscence. Sitting on his gallerie, 
the great bowl of his pipe resting on his fat 
knee, he would " jolly " all of us. Every hour we 
liked the Baron better. And never did I see 
such loyalty as his cheery wife and Allesjandro 
gave to the old man. The rude little home radi- 
ated good will and good humor to all the infinite 
loneliness of its sweep of sea and sky and marsh. 

That night after supper we gathered in the 
living room under its low, smoky rafters hung 
with garlands of bright peppers, garlic, dried 
fish, skins of mink, and hunting clothes. The 
Baron's chinmey was a big one, thatched with 
mud over the huge, open fire-place. Wasps had 
built their nests in everj^ corner and toe-hold, 
while the walls were a gay disorder of litho- 
graphs and calendars. 

Worst of all was that this room was un- 
screened; and best of all was the opera. For, 
honest, we had opera! That was the occasion of 
the party. The old Baron retired early under 
his mosquito bar to the bed in one corner of the 



318 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

room, merely keeping his huge pipe bowl out 
from under the net, where it waved to and fro 
majestically with the music. Allesjandro busied 
himself with making a fire to smoke out the mos- 
quitoes, and the Mrs. Baron wound up the 
phonograph. Then Esther passed around the 
citronelle bottle, from which everyone liberally 
sprinkled themselves to ward the mosquitoes 
still further away, and the festivity was on. 

We had all the good old stuff; Verdi, and the 
" Pilgrims' Chorus," and the " Spring Song," 
and " Tarentelle," and then we saw the Baron's 
pipe sticking from under the bar keeping time — 
while puff — puff — puff — the smoke came out 
the top of the bed — to his favorite: "La Donne 
e Mobile," from " Rigoletto." He knew all the 
music as he could discuss world politics or the 
frying of soft shell crabs when he wished. 

Allesjandro's fire soon had everybody chok- 
ing and sputtering, but still the mosquitoes 
fought for admittance. So the party went on 
with jibes and laughter, the phonograph growl- 
ing away on its classics, and the smell of the 



ON THE BARON'S ISLAND 319 

citronelle rising to Heaven. It was quite eleven 
when the last air had been played and the last 
pipe smoked by the Baron. He stuck his wise 
old shaggy head from under the bar to bid us 
'' Bon soir," Then we went out in the full 
moonlight that lay like a bar of yellow over 
Barataria Bay to our palm hut down the beach, 
still humming a bit of Verdi. 

Says Hen: *'Do you know, if it wasn't for 
the mosquitoes this would be romantic. Moon- 
light, music, girl, and all that sort of thing! " 



CHAPTER XVI 

WITH THE MORO EXILES 

THE next morning we made a startling 
discovery. I had had an extra pair of 
khaki " pants." Hen had often protested 
against the rashness of me owning two pairs of 
pants, to say nothing of the additional burden 
to our canoe outfit. But I pointed out that a 
man cannot properly pursue the adventurous 
life on one pair of trousers, so I stuck to them. 
And now they were gone. What was worse, all 
our money was in them! 

We racked our brains. " I think you left them 
at Manila in Portyghee Joe's bunk," said Hen. 
That seemed probable. 'No one had seen the 
luckless pants for a week ; and there was no pos- 
sible use for money. We related this harrow- 
ing tale at the Baron's and at once they were 

320 




TIr' simkc'ii shoics and cypress spikt's of (irand I.akc 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 321 

all sympathy. It was decided to sail at once for 
Manila and rescue the trousers, and the Baron- 
ess and her guest and Hen and I got away on 
Allesjandro's yacht, with the Baron calling 
adieux in Latin and waving his pipe from the 
gallerie. 

We had a famous sail of it, leaving with noth- 
ing but early coffee, intending to get breakfast 
on board. But I so bragged about the break- 
fast that Charley Grand jean would cook for us, 
his amazing biscuits and shrimp fricassee, that 
Esther joined me in declining to eat with the 
others on board. We scorned simple rice and 
bread, but when we reached Manila, with the 
wind dropping fitfully all the way, it was so 
late that the cook had gone off fishing and no 
one was there except Portyghee Joe to greet us 
and fervently restore the pants and money. We 
had great felicitation and, of course, coffee, but 
the rest of our party stood about in glee listen- 
ing to Esther and me hint it was about dinner 
time. 

And it was — that was the awful thing about 



322 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

it, and we had been up since five o'clock with 
nothing to eat. We got away for home at two 
o'clock with the cook still missing and our sense 
of delicacy too great to demand dinner. Inno- 
cent Portyghee Joe didn't dream of it, but on 
the way back Allesjandro and Hen and the 
Baroness shouted with laughter. 

" Next time you will scorn our cooking, will 
you?" chortled they — "and tell us about the 
famous chef at Manila ! '* 

So we drifted back to Cutler's with madden- 
ing slowness. Allesjandro related how he came 
to Barataria twenty-five years ago, after desert- 
ing from a Spanish merchantman on the New 
Orleans levees. In those days it was the custom 
of the Spaniards to seize natives of the Philip- 
pines in the outlying islands, impress them into 
forced service in the merchant marine, and treat 
them so cruelly that they would desert in any 
port of the world. Allesjandro and two other 
" Manilamen " escaped across the Mississippi, 
seized a skifF, and threaded the bayous down 
from New Orleans seeking camps of their fel- 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 323 

low countrymen which they had learned were 
here. They suffered greatly from hunger and 
thirst, but finally reached Bassa Bassa platform 
and were cared for. He fished and trapped for 
several years until he met the Baron and entered 
his service. 

The wind came later, a mighty pocketful that 
we didn't want, just as we managed to crawl into 
the cove at Cutler's. A black squall jumped 
into the west, bowled down, and put the sloop 
on her beam ends before we got her sails in. 
Then we managed to get ashore in the skiff, 
drenched and laughing and hungry, to find the 
Baron entertaining a guest from St. Joseph's 
Island — Old Mariano, grizzled and dark, who 
understood little English. But he smiled con- 
tinually, and when Allesjandro, over the hot 
rice, bawled : " Blow, San Anton — e ! " Old 
Mariano joined the fun . He paddled off at 
length, leaving with us an invitation to have 
breakfast Sunday morning at St. Joseph's. 

Then another night of wondrous moonlight, 
the bay a mirror showing the myriad stars, 



324 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

while twenty miles to the south, the Grand 
Terre light flashed now and then so clear was 
the atmosphere. We had more opera and mos- 
quito dope and went to bed contentedly, with the 
flicker of the palm thatch as the lizards scam- 
pered through it in our drowsy ears. 

We started at six o'clock for St. Joseph's, the 
Baroness and I in one pirogue and Hen and 
Esther in the other with Allesjandro paddling. 
Such gayety was quite too much for the Baron's 
bones, but he waved us grandly ^' Bon voyage/' 

The four miles gave us all a taste for break- 
fast, and everyone helped prepare it. Mariano's 
camp was quite the most primitive place we had 
yet seen, a tiny shack of palms laced and tied 
with grass thongs to the pole supports. And in 
it nothing but the two bunks of the old Moros, a 
rude table, a box for their scanty groceries, and 
a clay furnace hollowed out of the floor at one 
end. But how clean it all was! The clay floor 
was hammered and swept, everything was in 
order, all the extra clothes were out on bushes 
about the hut, and even the path leading to the 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 325 

thatch fence of the little garden was swept 
thriftily. 

The island was much like the other; in front 
a sweep of slow tide water reaching to the tree- 
less prairies, and behind the low ridge which 
made the garden and the house spot, the illimit- 
able marshes again stretched away. Nothing 
was in sight to break the brilliant salt swamp 
colors except a few far oak chenieres — nothing 
except sky and sea and the eternal silence. 

Old Mariano and his partner, Juan Sam- 
boanga, who, said Allesjandro, was so called 
from the town he hailed from in the Philippines, 
were Spanish deserters like most of the other 
Manilamen. They had been in the Barataria 
swamps for forty years, living simply by their 
seines and traps and gardens. Old Juan was 
one of the most striking figures — very tall and 
lithe, his long beard white as snow, his cheeks 
and brow smooth and brown as chocolate. His 
eyes twinkled under the bushy brows, and his 
great dignity made me think of an Arab chief — 
as you read of Arabs. 



326 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

One could not ask for more graceful hospital- 
ity than these two lonely old men extended. 
They apologized for nothing. Their poverty 
was plain, but all was yours — accept it. They 
had a great gumbo brewing; crabs and shrimp 
and oysters along with okra, tomatoes, lemon, 
parsley, bay leaves, peppers, onions, lard, and 
garlic. When we had inspected the neat garden 
with the white shells carefully piled between the 
rows of young plants we came back to this feast. 
They offered us water in little calabashes, 
adorned with colored clay, and coffee in battered 
tin cups. Their bread was broken from a huge 
loaf baked in the clay oven which was outside 
the house and almost as large. And though the 
two old men were silent or laughed shyly with 
Allesjandro, who interpreted our compliments 
to them, never did a rarer spirit of fellowship 
shine forth than from their eyes. They were 
simply and proudly glad to have us as guests — 
that was all. 

Old Juan said that he was one hundred and 
ten years old, and, scanning him closer, one be- 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 327 

lieved it. His fine brown skin was literally a fila- 
gree of intricate lines. But his eyes were clear 
as a girl's, and though Mariano did most of the 
work, Juan declared he felt young as his com- 
rade. A gay young comrade of eighty! 

We smoked and gossiped all morning with 
our hosts in the shade of the cheniere. When 
we addressed a question they would beam and 
turn to Allesjandro for a clearer interpretation 
and the little sailing master would gesticulate 
excitedly, both arms working. Then the two 
gentle old men would debate the matter and ex- 
plain. I wanted to learn more of their lives, 
for Juan had been a head-hunter in his days as 
a young Moro before the Spaniards captured 
him, but conversation via Allesjandro was diffi- 
cult. I couldn't catch all of Allesjandro's inter- 
pretations. 

But we bade them good-by and paddled back 
in the hot mid-day to sleep and loaf until supper 
time. The old Moros had made us a present of 
a dish of roe and fish and spices all pickled and 
bay leaf scented, and we presented this to the 



328 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Baron for the evening meal, and he accepted it 
>vith grand ceremony. 

I shall not forget that last night's beauty. 
There was a phenomenon at sunset that brought 
us all out on the tiny shell beach to exclaim and 
wonder. Some impalpable mist was in the air 
over all the sea and marshes and through this 
the level sun rays shot until it hung everywhere 
in filmy fringes of translucent golden web. 
Here and there a patch of blue sky showed 
dimly, and under it the limitless marsh was an 
emerald encircled by the mirrored waters. So 
still it was that a single wild duck winging into 
this magic light could be heard far away; and 
so fragile hung this curtain that when the red 
globe of the sun dropped into the waters, it van- 
ished like a dream, leaving the sky and marsh 
crystal clear again. 

Allesjandro said it must mean "weather." 
The Baron hobbled back to his gallerie. He 
waved his hand with a sort of pathos out to the 
silent plumes of the Spanish moss reflected from 
the live oaks in the water. 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 329 

" Well, well — and I am old, and one of these 
days the island shall know me no more. Eh, 
my good friends ! Let us fill our pipes and think 
how very fine it is to be together." 

He was not poor — not he! Any more than 
Old Mariano and his friend at St. Joseph's I 
What if the Baron's castle had come to be a 
three-room hut of boards and palm leaves, 
browned and smoked with age and cheery fires, 
home tints and memories? It was with a 
princely sort of grace the old swordsman waved 
you to his table — you the guest, Yankee, Creole, 
Filipino deserter, beach comber of Grand Isle 
or Tambalier; to his rice and fish couhouillion, 
coffee, bread, and melons; to his bed down the 
beach in the guest house. 

What more could a man want? Here was the 
gleam of shells on his own beach, here his amaz- 
ing sky; his marsh, his palm and oak and gar- 
den, and all about the sea's riches came to his 
" sweet earth," as the natives call land higher 
than the salt tides. There, in winter, are the 
deer of the cheniere, the ducks of the lagoons. 



330 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the mink, otter, muskrats in the marshes for his 
man to trap; there were the passing shrimp and 
trade boats, friendly men, neighbors all, wher- 
ever they might wander. When Hen and I went 
to our beds he was repeating: "Let's fill our 
pipes, my friends. It is very good to be to- 
gether." 

We left Cutler's the next day, paddling up 
Bayou Dupont, a narrow, winding way through 
the salt marshes. They warned us against it. It 
led into uninhabited desolation all the way to 
Barataria. But it was shorter than by Little 
Lake, and besides desolation was what we 
wanted to see rather than more camps and plat- 
form villages. Our good friends waved us fare- 
well that sunrise from the shell beach. Alles- 
jandro shouted: "Blow, San Anton — e! Good 
winds f o' you ! " 

And now I hate to record the last word pf 
Cutler's Island. I would rather remember it 
as we were welcomed. Two years later I sailed 
from Grand Isle up through broad St. Denis, 
intending to stop and look the spot over. But 



WITH THE MORO EXILES 331 

I didn't. As I saw it from our motorboat I 
didn't care to. It was the year after the great 
hurricane. No white sloop rode in the little 
cove. No palm-thatched guest house stood down 
the shell beach. The Baron's castle had van- 
ished from under the big live oaks. Those oaks 
themselves were twisted and shattered, seeming 
to stagger out of great gouges torn from the 
shell reef and leaning as if to flee from the ter- 
ror that had smote them. Nothing of all the 
quaint and pretty garden remained. The sea 
that rode up out of the southeast and for three 
days burst over all the coast had riven Cutler's 
to a mere tattered little wilderness about which 
the salt marshes enhanced the solitude. 

Curiously enough, Grand Isle, twenty miles 
farther out toward the Gulf, had escaped with 
nothing but an inundation and the loss of one 
life, although every boat save one in its anchor- 
age was adrift. Manila was badly battered, 
and the shrimp fishers, cutting the masts from 
their luggars, tied themselves in and drifted with 
the seas, some discovering, after the tornado. 



332 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

that they were stranded in impenetrable marshes 
thirty miles from their wrecked camps. But 
next month back they all came, hopefully, buoy- 
antly, forgetful of the three hundred of their 
fellows who were lost in the Tambalier and 
Grand Caillou camps; or of La Cheniere Cami- 
nada in 1893 and of Isle Derniere in 1854, cele- 
brated in Lafcadio Hearn's story of " Chita." 

It is in the blood with these hardy, simple, 
fun-loving children of the South. They will tell 
you of the storms, of their lost fathers and 
brothers, with a shrug. '^ Tres bien? Who can 
ward off the will of God?" 

The Baron and his retinue escaped in their 
sloop, but the old man died in New Orleans, the 
following year. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE " BANTAYAN " ENDS HER CRUISE 

HEN and I paddled the Bantayan on all 
that hot June day up Bayou Dupont. 
It widened out to still and nameless 
little lakes and then narrowed to the same man- 
grove-fringed channel. It led us into low scrubs 
of palms and willows, cane, oak, and bronze- 
plumed grasses all tangled with miles and miles 
of morning glories. We saw more fearless bird 
life in those two days in Bayou Dupont than we 
had in all the months before. Egrets and galli- 
nules, herons and cranes, snipe and plover on 
the mud flats, and we could paddle within thirty 
feet of them, so somnolent they seemed. And 
in the scrub were our old forest friends, the scar- 
let tanagers, cardinals, and mocking birds. Once 
we stirred a deer, which splashed easily off in 

SS3 



334 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

the swamp, and twice we overtook a lazy 'gator 
crossing the bayou. 

But the prospect was depressing; we were in 
the lowest fringe of the great Barataria woods, 
where the last trees run out to salt water — a 
lonely, dying land of pale opal glows and si- 
lences. Far to the east now and then we caught 
the smoke plumes of the ocean liners ascending 
the Mississippi to New Orleans. Once we saw 
a white plantation house in the dim, blue line of 
woods that marked the margin of the great river. 
We tried to get near the higher country, but 
at its closest five miles of impassable salt marsh 
lay Detween. There was a channel somewhere, 
but we could not find it. At evening, when we 
were getting rather concerned as to our bearings, 
owing to the channels that led off either way to 
end in mere blind morasses, and more than one 
earnest debate was held as to the course, we came 
upon something that made us shout. We knew 
the right channel now! 

Ahead of us, drifting about a scrubby point, 
we saw the water hyacinths! 



" BANT AY AN " ENDS HER CRUISE 335 

They were drifting with the ebb tide, and 
surely they must come out of Barataria woods, 
whither we knew Dupont must eventually lead. 
So we paddled on more hopefully, for the pros- 
pect of a night in the marsh was not pleasing. 
The mosquitoes would be fearful. More lilies 
came about the bends, more than we wished, for 
soon Hen was swearing at the course he had to 
pursue to avoid them. 

"But they come from sweet landf' I cried. 
** So there's a way out! '* 

*' Fine. But suppose they fill this bayou up 
a bit? A battleship couldn't get through the 
lily jams we've seen up on Grand Biver." 

But we had better luck. We worked wearily 
from dawn to dark that day and never a glimpse 
of a human presence did we discover. And then, 
as we were paddling on along a thick, scrubby 
shore and a few mosquitoes were winging out of 
the brush at us, I looked in to see a palm-thatch 
above the grass. We landed at once. It was in 
use, but no one was about. This was the first 
real " sweet land " we had seen since Cutler's, 



336 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

and some swamper had taken advantage of it. 
The owner had left his coffee pot half-filled on 
the edge of the clay furnace and his bars hung 
under the shack, so we knew he would return. 

We stuck up our tent alongside and appro- 
priated his kitchen utensils and firewood. Our 
hasty supper was almost done when I heard an 
exclamation, and looking out on the dusky 
stream saw a man staring at us from his pi- 
rogue. He was startled, but we hailed him. He 
came ashore nervously and we introduced our- 
selves. 

Ah, yes, the Yankees and the pirogue! Of 
course he knew! People in Barataria were still 
wondering where those two madmen had disap- 
peared last March when their silk tent was 
struck on Spanish Man's Point at Lake Sal- 
vador ! 

Le Nom de Dieu! Where had we been? 
Grand Isle? In that pirogue? Impossible! 
And La Fourche and Morgan City? Up the 

Atchafalaya ? Xo — no, my friends — that 

can't be! A pirogue could not cross all the 



" BANT AY AN " ENDS HER CRUISE 337 

lakes? And how could we live in the Hood 
swamps he had heard about up the Mississippi? 
Le Nom de Dieu — and didn't the snakes and 
mosquitoes kill us? 

We had to sit about M'sieu Adam's campfire 
and fight mosquitoes an hour telling all this. He 
had never been half that far from home — no — 
no — surely not ! That was too far for an honest 
man! 

M'sieu Adam was hunting alligators. Two 
more of his friends were coming later and they 
would steal down the bayou in their pirogues, a 
flambeau on the prow of each, and when they 
saw a 'gator's eyes shining in the dark they 
would pot him with a shotgun loaded with buck- 
shot. 

" Not for me! " sang Hen. " Mosquitoes all 
night for a 'gator skin? And you'll sell it for 
six bits to the trade boats! " 

After we had retired and I was about asleep, 
M'sieu Adam stole to our tent and rustled the 
bar. He had thought of something. His friends 
would be coming up the bayou and they would 



338 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

see this green-white tent shining in the moon- 
light, and sure as can be they would either be 
frightened and paddle back with all haste or 
they would shoot at it. So M'sieu Adam was 
going to set off to meet them and warn them 
not to disturb the visitors' rest by raking them 
with buckshot. 

We breakfasted with the trio the next morn- 
ing. They had four alligators, the largest one 
six feet long. From these hunters we had ample 
directions, and here turned almost west, passing 
Bayou L'Traverse, into which otherwise we 
would certainly have gone and been hopelessly 
entangled in the woods. So that day, working 
on in the mid-June heat, we came out of Bayou 
Dupont into Barataria, and six miles up came 
upon the first luggars lying along the village 
front. The residents of the forlorn settlement 
greeted us cheerfully, but we paddled on to 
Bayou Villere, and that night, for the last time, 
Hen and I put up the little green tent at Span- 
ish Man's Point in the exact spot we had pitched 
it more than three months ago. Old Man Cap- 



A 



" BANT AY AN " ENDS HER CRUISE 339 

tain Johnson was running his crab line from the 
same leaky skiff when we hailed him. Then he 
hurriedly pulled to shore. 

"By Mighty, you boys done got back I I 
reckon you seen the hull gove'ment you been 
gone so long ! " He lammed a few houn' pups 
aside and grasped our hands shining-eyed. 
" Many's the time I said I'd give a pretty to 
see you. I been tryin' to save a durn little old 
melon for you out in the gyarden, but the tides 
come off that lake too salty and cleaned me 
out!" 

Good Old Man Captain! Not a bit daunted 
was he by the loss of a season's work. Always 
the fine cheery soul; and two years later, when 
I and a friend or two were called on to do the 
last possible simple service for him, we laid him 
under the oaks of Isle Bonne — " On my side, 
boys, with an arm up to keep the dirt out of 
my face, like a soldier ought to be buried ! " 

And to-day, as I write, the yellow waters of 
the great river to the North have poured through 
Hymelia crevasse, six feet deep over Old Man 



840 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

Captain's grave. A fine old soldier of dreams! 

We paddled on up Barataria the next day, 
and into Harvey's canal, covering twenty miles 
in the heat. And where the locks cut through 
the levee we found Colonel Harvey, and the 
deputy sheriff who had first ushered us away 
with a wave of his hand: " It's the free state of 
Barataria, gentlemen ! The swamp is yours ! '* 

They asked of our hunting. We hadn't a pelt 
to show! Of our fishing. Not a yarn we had 
to relate! What had we done, then, in those 
three months? All this paddling of a stick of 
cypress through the bayous and swamps? We 
smiled contentedly : we had found peace, but can 
you explain that to anyone? We had the mem- 
ories of wondrous dawns, sunsets, nights of 
friendly fires and pipes, days of chance and 
labor, simple faiths and cheery greetings — the 
banal snarl of the cities was gone quite out of 
our brains, some callous heaviness from our 
souls. 

We stood on the levee looking across at the 
line of docks and ships before New Orleans with 



" BANT AY AN " ENDS HER CRUISE 341 

some indefinable regret. Three months of aimless 
paddling — quite seven hundred miles of bayou, 
swamp, lake, and coast, in and out, crossing our 
tracks — and the wanderlust was still calling. 

" I tell you what let's do! " cried Hen. " Let's 
put the old tub through the locks and end the 
y'yage right down town on Canal Street I " 

I looked at the stubby Bantayan — and I 
looked at the lordly river. " Son, I'm with you. 
I hate to give her up ! ^ 

When we proposed going down the river in 
that pirogue Colonel Harvey protested. The 
Bantayan had no more license to be in the Mis- 
sissippi than Hen had to enter a beauty contest. 
But we insisted, and at last the Colonel yielded. 
" Well, paddle her into the locks ! I'll put her 
over, and she'll be the smallest craft ever locked 
through, I assure you." 

And he did — that thirteen-foot dugout in the 
120-foot lock! Then we paddled out on the 
Father of Waters, stripped for a struggle, for 
if a liner's swell hit us, or a log, or the wake 
of a tug, it was " curtains " for the Bantayan, 



342 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

we knew well enough. I had my note-books tied 
about my neck ready for the swim. But we 
made that six miles of river flood, down past 
docks and ocean liners and ferryboats, in good 
shape and, at the foot of Canal Street, ran the 
pirogue in past the wave-washed piles. 

It was dusk by then, and a big policeman 
standing under the sparkling arcs saw us and 
yelled: 

"Hey — you! Git out o' there, you greasers! 
That ferryboat " 

Barefooted, bareheaded, stripped to under- 
shirts and khakis, we climbed up the revetment, 
to stare one way at the city's lights, and the 
other at our homely little log lying on the 
planks. 

Hen lighted a cigarette and airily ignored the 
ferry " cop," who still eyed us with indignant 
suspicion, and all the throngs of hurrying House 
People who streamed on homeward with the 
merest glance of disapproving interest at us two 
bronzed tramps off the water. 

" Go on — kill yourselves at it, you poor strap- 



" BANT AY AN " ENDS HER CRUISE 343 

hanging money-chasers," murmured Hen. " I 
don't care if I never come back. I don't care 
if — well, say — old topi How's your hair com- 
ing on now? That chap, Ponce, hasn't anything 
on us, has he?" 

" I know what happened to Ponce," I re- 
torted. " He'd somehow heard of the crawfish 
bisque that Felix Landry makes up in the Atcha- 
falaya lake country, or Old Mariano's cou'houil- 
lion down on Bayou St. Denis. And he just 
naturally wore himself out trying to find them." 



THE END 



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